How to Write an Effective Letter of Complaint

How many times have you thought about writing a letter to complain about some shoddy work or poor service? It'll be quite often if you're anything like me. You would be surprised though, at the number of people who will shy away from writing a letter of complaint because they either don't know what to write or think they'll just be seen as unreasonable. Since the art of letter writing is a dying one due to e-mail and texting, many people lack the confidence and skills to put their complaint in a formal letter. Yes, it can be difficult to get your point across coherently, and yes, you could be seen as unreasonable if you are too forceful or threatening.

There are, however, a few basic tips and guidelines that you could try to help you put your frustrations down in words and get some action and some satisfaction.

Firstly, make some notes to capture the main points that you feel you need to get across, including a timeline of events if it's relevant. a time line is just a list of what happened and at what time, sorted into chronological order. This will be invaluable later as you start to piece your letter together. Jot down some key words and phrases to jog your memory as you're writing. This will help ensure you don't miss any of the important points you want to get across.

Now take each point in turn and write out everything you want to say about that particular point. Do this for all of your key points. You'll see that you now have the beginnings of a letter that you can easily stitch together, possibly using the timeline that you recorded to make things flow in chronological order. Make sure that you've explained everything in a logical, and preferrably unemotional, fashion. If the complaint is something that you feel passionate about, you will find it very difficult to completely remove the emotion from your writing. This is fine and will probably mean that you've managed to control it to a suitable level.

Keep your language relatively formal while still making the letter easy to read. You want to present yourself as intelligent and articulate but without sounding like a lawyer.

Check, and correct, your grammar and spelling.

Use short paragraphs and sentences but without making the writing stilted and unreadable. You want to make the letter easy to read so that the person dealing with your complaint will read the whole letter and is crystal clear on what you are writing about. Long-winded sentences and lengthy paragraphs will not help.

Once you have the body of your letter, explaining what happened and why you are so unhappy, you will want to get some kind of reaction from whoever you're writing to. This reaction might be in the form of a written apology, an explanation, an assurance of some kind or even suitable compensation. To do this, summarise the key questions or information that you wish to see addressed in their reply and be clear about how quickly you would like a reply. You must remember to remain reasonable at this point though, and ensure you look for a reply to points that you feel they will be, or should be, able to comment upon.

Similarly if you are seeking compensation, you will be taken much more seriously if you seek reasonable compensation and have stated what level or type of compensation you believe would be suitable. Sometimes it can be more effective to leave this as a question. Ask the reader to give you their opinion on what suitable compensation might be.

In summary:

Lastly, never write and post a letter of complaint while you are still angry or upset about the subject. By all means write the letter while the memory is fresh, but put it to the side for a day. Once you have calmed down or feel less emotional about the subject, re-read your letter and make whatever changes you think are needed to remain as objective as possible.

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