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The Power of a Complaint Letter

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The Power of a Complaint Letter Every business hungers to be successful. Businesses want to put their best foot forward, and their best product to the consumer. However, on occasion, people become upset or disappointed when the product or service does not reach expectation. In this case, businesses often receive the dreaded complaint letter from customers. The purpose of a complaint letter is to bring a grievance to the attention of an owner or manager of the business, so action can be taken as soon as possible. When writing a complaint letter it is important to include appeals to the audience, structure of the letter, tone, and context. Also keep in mind, that playing into the emotions by usage of ethos, pathos, and logos can positively …show more content…

By being assertive, yet respectful, one can achieve proper settlement. Now that a basic structure is known when writing a complaint letter, one must appeal to the reader by use of logic.
Appealing to logic, or logos, includes both an overall argument and the evidence used to support the argument. To build an effective argument, one must first provide some sort of background information to provide the reader with context as to why the letter is being written in the first place. This was done in the previous paragraph to also show the chain of events in order for the reader to know the timeframe of the situation. In Westergren’s letter, he clearly states why he is upset: “The problem came when these sneakers turned out no different than the last two pairs, and fell apart. I expect quality when making a purchase, especially when spending almost $100 on shoes.” Westergren clearly states his problem, and I feel he plays a little bit into pathos as well by accusing the company of selling low quality materials. Once one has identified their primary arguments, provide supporting evidence such as details as to what happened to the product, how long ago the product was purchased, and were there other products of the same brand that this has also happened to. By explaining this information to them, it can provide the company with the knowledge that it may not have happened to just you, the writer, but other valued customers as well.

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