(Exit
Example formal business complaint
letter to a phone company. Gap fill
exercise. Improve your English
grammar and vocabulary
Instructions: This letter is an authentic complaint to a phone company fill in the gaps
with the correct words
Dear Sir,I am writing this letter 1) ________ complain 2) ________ the strongest
terms about the poor service that I have received from your company. We signed 3)
________ 4) ________ your telephone and internet service package two months ago
because your advertising suggests that you are better than Telco. In addition, you
promise 5) ________ deal with problems quickly and efficiently, something that Telco
were unable or unwilling 6) ________ do. However, 7) ________ the first month 8)
________ service you managed 9) ________ cause me 10) ________ lose two days
worth 11) ________ business because 12) ________ poor administration. The main
problem was that you failed 13) ________ provide me with the correct telephone
number, 9818 8747, that you had promised when I completed the contract. This phone
number was an established business line which I had been using for the last three
years. Obviously this meant that my clients were unable 14) ________ contact me and
it cost me many hours 15) ________ phone calls 16) ________ resolve the matter with
your support centre.I would appreciate it if this situation could be resolved and a
substantial rebate offered on my first three month's account.I look forward 17)
________ hearing from you soon.Yours FaithfullyCharlie Williams
The answers are: 1 = to 2 = in 3 = up 4 = to 5 = to 6 = to 7 = in 8 = of 9 = to 10 = to 11 =
of 12 = of 13 = to 14 = to 15 = of 16 = to 17 = to
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE LA SPEZIA & SARZANA
CAE Writing
Letter of Complaint
Here is a question from a past CAE exam.
You and a friend, Sam, bought some CDs to help you improve your English. You were not
happy with the CDs and have decided to write to the publisher, CD World.
Read the email from Sam and the advertisement for the CDs below, on which you have made
some notes. Then, using the information appropriately, write a letter to CD World explaining
why you bought the CDs, why you are dissatisfied and saying what you would like the
company to do.
From: Sam
Subject: CDs
How did you get on with the language practice CDs? I wasnt very impressed. English
conversation in a week I dont think so! The ad was dishonest I think we should try to get
our money back.
CD World
English conversation in a week
set of 6 CDs
no business conversations
English conversation for business and pleasure
Everyday language
Listen and repeat not enough time!
Only 20 euros
Each CD!!!
Now write your letter to CD World, as outlined above.
First you need to make a plan. The letter should be divided into 3 paragraphs, as follows:
- State problem, say why you bought the CDs and that you are dissatisfied
- Detailed explanation of problems (no business conversations, not enough time to repeat, the
price)
- Conclusion, what you want CD World to do
Previously, the CAE exam included a part of Paper 3 which tested register transfer (changing
informal to formal register or vice versa). This has been dropped from the updated exam, but
the examiner wants to see that you are able to frame your answer in an appropriate way. Your
letter should be firm, but courteous in style. You should think of ways of expressing your
displeasure that are not offensive. INTERNATIONAL HOUSE LA SPEZIA & SARZANA
Here is an example answer.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to express my disappointment with the course of English language CDs which I
purchased from your company a few days ago. I have a good theoretical knowledge of English
grammar and I was hoping that your course would help me to improve my conversational
fluency and my knowledge of business English, but I feel your product is unsatisfactory and
your advertisement is misleading in several respects.
To begin with, your advertisement states that the course provides English conversation for
pleasure and business. This naturally leads one to expect that there are commercial English
conversations on the CDs, and yet no such conversations are included. In addition, the student
is expected to listen and repeat the conversations, but there is not enough time to do this
without constantly pressing the pause button. Finally, your advertisement gives the
impression that the price for the whole course is 20 euros, whereas in fact the CDs cost 20
euros each. The total price is thus 120 euros. I feel this is, to say the least, somewhat
misleading.
For these reasons I am most dissatisfied with your product. I am returning the CDs and expect
a full refund. I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours faithfully
(your name
Writing Paper: Part 2
Task type: Letter of Complaint
Question
Read this extract from a letter you have recently sent to a friend:
.... Oh, and by the way, don't go to Barry's Restaurant for your birthday. We
went there last night - the service was awful and the food was a disaster! I
complained to the head waiter but he asked me to put it in writing ...
Write your letter of complaint to the restaurant manager. (220-260 words)
Answer
Click on the underlined words or phrases for comments. The numbers in brackets offer
suggestions. General feedback appears below the essay.
Name: Sawako
Country: Japan
School: Shena Simon College, Manchester, UK
Der {1} Sir or Madam,
I am writing to express my annoyance at {***} {2}your restaurant yesterday. I chose your
restarurant to invite three of my important business clients, reading {3} "Best Restaurants
in Britain 2000", but the realitiy was far from its recommendation {4}.
First, as stated in the guide book, you have {5} a variety of course {6} meals in {7} the
menu. However, only 2 for meat {8} and 1 for fish {9} were on offer yesterday. This
deeply dissapointed {10} my guests. Therefore, we chose {***}starter, main dish and
dessert la carte, but it was not very easy. Many were unavailable; e.g. we did not have
any other choices {11} than onion soup and seafood salad for {***}starter.
Furthermore, the meals were not served at the same time. About five minutes after a
ram{12} steak was put on the table for one of my clients, any of others had not been
served yet {13}. Therefore, he had to start alone. I asked your staff to bring all the other
meals soon and in another five minutes only two, including my grilled salmon, were
brought to us. When the other one, steamed trout, was put on the table, the client who had
{14} a ram steak had almost finished.
Finally, the beef steak my client had was overcooked, although he asked for a mediumcooked{***}.
On paying the bill, I complained about this inconvenience to your head waiter, but he
asked me to contact you directly in writing{***}. I feel that a refund of at least 200, which
is half of our payment {15}, would be appropriate. I look forward to receiving a
satisfactory reply within 14 days{***}.
Yours faithfully,
Jane Smith
Feedback
Well done, Sawako. This is a well organised letter and the formal register
is particularly appropriate for a letter of complaint. For the makeover I
focused on the following points:
1. Spelling errors, although some may have been just typing errors.
2. Vocabulary. I have made some suggestions that would sound a bit more
natural to an English speaker.
Best of luck in the CAE exam!
Fiona
10.10.2000
(Exit)
Writing Paper: Part 2
Task type: Letter of Complaint
Question
Read this extract from a letter you have recently sent to a friend:
.... Oh, and by the way, don't go to Barry's Restaurant for your birthday. We
went there last night - the service was awful and the food was a disaster! I
complained to the head waiter but he asked me to put it in writing ...
Write your letter of complaint to the restaurant manager. (220-260 words)
Answer
Click on the underlined words or phrases for comments. The numbers in brackets offer
suggestions. General feedback appears below the essay.
Name: Katarna Mihalovicova
School: The British Council, Bratislava, The Slovak Republic
Dear Sir,
I am writing to complain about the efficiency of the service that you offer in your
restaurant, which is, in a fact, one of the most recommended places to go in our
town.
Being influenced by your wonderful advertisement in "The Sun"{1}, I decided to
visit your restaurant with my seriously ill little daughter to celebrate her birthday
there. I had booked our table and a small marzipan teddy bear in your restaurant
two weeks in advance. After spending one hour in your restaurtant I was
unpleasantly surprised with the inefficiency of your service.
Being the ordinary customers, we did not have enough time to eat our dinner,
because we were told to leave our table for another, probably more important,
customer.This unbelievable explanation was given by your service manager and
we had no alternative,{2} but to accept it.
Regarding the food offered on your menu, I have never seen the French Chicken
so badly prepared. The French rise appeared to be of the same quality, absolutely
tasteless and without any trace of spice. The waiter brought me the bottle of twoyear Chablis instead of bringing the glass of three-year Chardonnay{3}.
In addition to unimaginative taste of your food{4}, we were told, that no teddy bear
had been reserved for us and as a result, my daughter was very sad. I was both
amused and annoyed with the anwer your waiter gave us, regarding our chance to
complain, which is possible only in writing form {5}.
According to my negative experience, which I have mentioned in this letter, I would
be thankful to receive the {6} letter of apology from you, which will be{7} signed by
your service manager. I hope that he will appreciate my comments and realise the
fact, that the service offered by your staff is at the point, where some precautions
need to be taken. {8}
Sincerely yours
Andy Warhol
Feedback
Your letter of complaint successfully completes all of the task. (The reader
would have a very clear understanding of why you were dissatified with the
meal and a clear expectation of the action that you expect to be taken.)
You have organised this letter very well indeed and you achieve the
appropriate register through your use of complex grammatical structures.
The tone of the letter is a little sharp, but then again you have reason to be
annoyed!
I have reworded some of your expressions on occasions where your
vocabulary doesn't sound entirely natural, but even as this letter stands you
have approached the task competently. Good!
Best wishes in the CAE exam.
Fiona Joseph
24.4.01
(Exit)
Writing Paper: Part 2
Task type: Letter of complaint
Question
Read this extract from a letter you have recently sent to a friend:
.... Oh, and by the way, don't go to Barry's
Restaurant for your birthday. We went there last
night - the service was awful and the food was a
disaster! I complained to the head waiter but he
asked me to put it in writing ...
Write your letter of complaint to the restaurant manager. (220-260 words)
Name: Piotr
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to complain about the way I was recently treated in your restaurant.{1}
Firstly, I have to say that I chose the best restaurant in our city, which yours pretend
{2} to be, because I wanted to celebrate our friend's birthday. We expected the
service to be polite and helpful. When I entered with friends{3}, nobody could tell
me which table was not occupied {4}. Furthermore, I booked {***} {5} table three
weeks before, but was informed that {6} my name did not stay in list{7}. Fortunately,
there was one extra table, where we settled ourselves.
Secondly, waiting for soup for more than an hour, not to mention eating an {8} old
bred {9}, really annoyed us. What is more, the quality of the served dishes was
rather poor{10}. We even wondered if it didn't go off {11}. Moreover, we were asked
to pay {***} {12} the water, whereas it stayed {13} in your menu that it was free.
Having cold dinner and listening to sad music we wondered if we could not go
elsewhere.{14}
Finally, and perhaps mainly{15}, we didn't manage to contact with{16} the chef in
order to complain. We were requested to write our suggestions and hand it in
later{17}.
As you can see, we found ourselves in a difficult situation that night. The aim of this
letter was to avoid {18} such errors in the future. I do hope you do not pretend {19}
to discourage guests to come {20} to your restaurant, but rather to attract more and
more visitors.
{21}Yours faithfully,
Piotrek Boj
Feedback (1)
Piotrek, this is a nicely written account of the problems you experienced in the
restaurant. You tell the story of your experience clearly. The letter is organised
appropriaely with the correct opening and closing forms. In the letter you could
also explain what action you would like the manager to take (e.g. a refund,
voucher for next visit, etc)
Language Points
1. Try not to over-use connecting phrases like 'firstly', 'secondly, and
'moreover'. They are useful in signposting points to the reader but if you
include too many it can sound a bit dull. Some good expressions to use in a
letter of complaint are ones like 'To make matters worse ....' or 'To add insult to
injury.....'
2. You achieve the right register and tone in the letter, i.e. formal, through
using the passive form ('we were asked..') and understatement.
3. The main language errors were to do with vocabulary and collocations in
particular. There was nothing that was too horrendous, but I have made a
number of suggestions that make it more natural-sounding.
Well done and good luck for your CAE!
Best wishes
Fiona Joseph
5.9.03
(Exit)
Writing Paper: Part 2
Task type: A letter of complaint
Question
Read this extract from a letter you have recently sent to a friend:
.... Oh, and by the way, don't go to Barry's
Restaurant for your birthday. We went there last
night - the service was awful and the food was a
disaster! I complained to the head waiter but he
asked me to put it in writing ...
Write your letter of complaint to the restaurant manager. (220-260 words)
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to complain about the unacceptable treatment that I received in your
restaurant last friday when I was intended {1} to have dinner with my husband.
First of all, we were given a table just in front of the toilets because there was not
any other available, although we had booked it in advanced. Furthermore, we were
forced to leave at 10 p.m because someone else had also booked the same table.
Secondly, we had to wait for nearly half an hour to be served and after the long
waiting {2} we were obliged to change our minds and ask for meat because there
was no lobster left. In fact, only three out of the seven main courses were available.
I would also like to point out the incompetence of the service because the waiter
spilled the sauce over my husbands dish even though we had advert {3} him not to
do so.
To make matters worse, there was no response when I asked to meet {4} the
manager of the restaurant so I have been forced to write to make you know about
{5} these unfortunate incidents.
I very much hope that in future you will take care of {6} these mistakes in order to
prevent them {***} {7}and I am afraid to say that i will have no alternative but to put
the matter in the hands of my solicitors should not I {8} receive a compensation {9}
within the next days.
Yours faithfully,
Carmen Pliego
