CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION
1.When organizing your requests,
why is it important to know whether any cultural differences exist between you and your audience? Explain.
2. For U.S. and Canadian requests, why is it inappropriate to begin with a brief personal introduction? Please explain your answer.
3. Every time you send a direct-request memo to Ted Jackson, he delays or refuses to comply. You're beginning to get impatient. Should you send Jackson a memo to ask what's wrong? Complain attitude? uncooperative to your supervisor about Jackson's Arrange a face-to-face meeting with Jackson? Bring up the prob- lem at the next staff meeting? Explain.
4.As a local retailer, would you take the time to reply to requests for information and action when no potential sale is involved? Why or why not?
5.You have a complaint against one of your suppliers, but you have no documentation to back it up. Should you request an adjustment anyway? Why or why not?
6. Your company's error cost an important business customer a new client, you know it and your customer knows it. Do you apologize, or do you refer to the incident in a positive light without ad- mitting any responsibility? Briefly explain.
7. When checking on a reference, why should you need the applicant's permission to contact a source? Explain your answer.
8.You've been asked to write a letter of recommendation for an em- ployee who is disabled and uses a wheelchair The disability has no effect on the employee's ability to do the job, and you feel possible. confident about writing the best recommendation Nevertheless, you know the prospective company and its facili- ties aren't well suited to wheelchair access. Do you mention the employee's disability in your lette? Explain.
DOCUMENTS FOR ANALYSIS
Read the following documents; then (1) analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each sentence and (2) revise each document so that it follows this chapter's guidelines
Document 7.A: Requesting Routine Information from a Business
our college is closing its dining hall for financial reasons, so we want to do something to help the students prepare their own food in their dorm rooms if they so choose. Your color- ful ad in Collegiate Magazine caught our eye. We need the following information before we make our decision.
1. Would you be able to ship the microwaves by August 15th? I realize this is short notice, but our board of trustees just made the decision to close the dining hall last week and we're scrambling around trying to figure out what to do.
2. Do they have any kind of a warranty? College students can be pretty hard on things, as you kno so we w need a good warranty.
3. How much does it cost? Do you give a discount for a big order?
4. Do we have to provide a special outlet?
5. will students know how to use them, or will we need to provide instructions?
As I said before, we're on a tight time frame and need good information from you as soon as possible to help us make our decision about ordering. You never know what the board might come up with next. I'm looking at several other companies, also, so please let us know ASAP
Document 7.B: writing Direct Requests for claims and Adjustments
At a local business-supply store, I recently purchased your
"Negotiator Pro" for my computer. I bought the CD because I magazine, and it looked as if saw your ad for it in MacWorld it might be an effective tool for use in my corporate seminar on negotiation.
Unfortunately, when I inserted it in my office computer, it wouldn't work. I returned it to the store, but since I had al- ready opened it, they refused to exchange it for a cD that would work or give me a refund. They told me to contact you and that you might be able to send me a version that would work with my computer.
You can send the information to me at the letterhead address. If you cannot send me the correct disk, please refund my $79.95. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me in this matter.
Document 7.C: Responding to claims and Adjustment Requests when the customer Is at Fault
We read your letter requesting your deposit refund. We couldn't figure out why you hadn't received it so we talked to our maintenance engineer as you suggested. He said you had left one of the doors off the hinges in your apartment in der to get a large sofa through the door. He also con- firmed that you had paid him $5.00 to replace the door since you had to turn in the U-Haul trailer and were in a big hurry
This entire situation really was caused by a lack of commu- inspector and the main- nication between our housekeeping tenance engineer. All we knew was that the door was off the hinges when it was inspected by Sally Tarnley. You know that our policy states that if anything is wrong with the apart- ment, we keep the deposit. We had no way of knowing that George just hadn't gotten around to replacing the door
But we have good news. We approved the deposit re fund, which will be mailed to you from our home office in Teaneck, New Jersey. I'm not sure how long that will take, however. If you don't receive the check by the end of next month, give me a call Next time, it's really a good idea to stay with your apart- ment until it's inspected as stipulated in your lease agree- ment. That way, you'll be sure to receive your refund when you expect it. Hope you have a good summer Document 7.D: Letter of Recommendation Your letter to Tanaka Asata, President of SONY was for- warded to me because I am the human resources director.
In my job as head of HR, I have access to performance reviews for all of the SONY employees in the United States. This means, of course, that I would be the person best qualified to answer your request for information on Nick Oshinski.
In your letter of the 15th, you asked about Nick Oshinski's employment record with us because he has applied to work for your company. Mr Oshinski was employed with us from January 5, 1992 until March 1, 1997. During that time, Mr. Oshinski received ratings ranging from 2.5 up to 9.6 with 10 being the top score. As you can see, he must have done better reporting to some managers than to others. In addition, he took al vacation days, which is a bit unusual. Although I did not know Mr. Oshinski personally, I know that our best work- ers seldom use all the vacation time they earn. I do not know if that applies in this case.
In summary, Nick Oshinski performed his tasks well de- pending on who managed him.
EXERCISES
1. Revise the following short e-mail messages so that they are more direct and concise: develop a subject line foreach revised message.
a. I'm contacting you about your recent order for a High Country backpack. You didn't tell us which backpack you wanted and you know we make a lot of different ones. We have the canvas models with the plastic frames and vinyl trim and we have the canvas models with leather trim, and we have the ones that have more pockets than the other ones. Plus they come in lots of different colors. Also they make the ones that are large for a big-boned person and the smaller versions for little women or kids.
b. Thank you for contacting us about the difficulty you had col- lecting your luggage at the Denver airport. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. As you trv. eling can create priblems of this sort regardless of how care- til the airline personel might he. To receive compensation, pleie send us a detailed list ofthe items thar you lostridenm- plete the following questionnaire. You can e-mail it back to us.
c. Sorry it took us so long to get back to you. We were flooded with résumés. Anyway, your résumé made the final ten, and after meeting three hours yesterday, we've decided we'd like to meet with you what is your schedule like for next week? Can you come in for an interview on June 15 at 3:00 p.m.? Please get back to us by the end of this work week and let us know if you will be able to attend.As you can imagine, this is our busy
d. We're letting you know that because we use over a ton of pa- per a year and because so much of that paper goes into the wastebasket to become so much more environmental waste. starting Monday, we're placing white plastic bins outside the elevators on every floor to recycle that paper and in the process, minimize pollution.
2. Rewrite the following sentences so they are direct and concise.
a. We wanted to invite you to our special 40 percent off by- invitation-only sale. The sale is taking place on November 9.
b. We wanted to let you know that we are giving a tote bag and a free Phish CD with every S50 donation you make to our radio station.
c. The director planned to go to the meeting that will be held on Monday at a little before 11:00 am.
d. In today's meeting, we were happy to have the opportunity to welcome Paul Eccelson. He reviewed some of the newest types of order forms. If you have any questions about these new forms, feel free to call him at his office.
3. Select the most effective medium for communicating these written messages.
a. A notice to all employees about the placement of recycling bins by the elevator doors
b. The first late-payment notice to a good customer who usually pays his bills on time
4. Send a free electronic greeting card from the My Sentiments Fine Art Greeting Cards collection at http: wwwartcards.com. You can choose from a variety of backgrounds and can even add music. Many languages are available. Recipients will receive an e-mail notice that a greeting is waiting for them.