Unit TwelveComplaintsclaims adjustments

Learning Objectives• After this Unit, you should be able to

To describe complaint, claim, and adjustments

To understand claim practice

To know how to make a complaint

General View Generally speaking, complaints should not

be necessary. In doing business, it is necessary

to abide by contracts and everything should be

done so carefully that no mistakes are made and

nothing is damaged. Unfortunately, everything

doe not always go as well as what we expect.

Often due to many unforeseen factors, errors

occur and goods are mishandled; accidents

happen.

General ViewAll these may be result in subsequent

complaints and claims of different

characters. They may result from:

1 ） wrong goods delivered

2 ） shipment overdue

3 ） shipment damaged, or short

4 ） goods in inferior quality

5 ） goods badly packed

General View It is usually the hope of both sellers and buyer

that any disputes between them be solved through discussion. However, if a satisfactory solution can not be reached between them after negotiation, a claim may be files to the court specified in the contract for arbitration.

Complaints and claims can be often settled through friendly negotiation, arbitration or by law. Every complaint or claim requires a prompt answer or acknowledgement. Replies to complaint letters,

often called letters of “adjustment,”

should always be courteous, even if the

complaints and claims are not justified.

General View If the complaint is justified, you have to admit

it readily, express your regret and indicate what steps the company is taking to put the matter right.

If the complaint is not justified, point this out politely and in an agreeable manner. In that case, your letter should be written carefully. The key is not to make the customer feel that he is considered over-demanding in making his request, but to assure him that his complaint has been seriously considered and used facts to convince

him of your position.

Guidelines of Writing1 ． Rules of complaint and claim Complaints and claims are usually made by the

importers who suffered losses against the exporters. A letter of complaints or claims should be written as follows:

1). Begin by regretting the need to complain or claim. 2). Mention the details of the goods complained about,

including the name of the goods, the order and contract number, the date of delivery, etc.

3). State the reasons for being dissatisfied and ask for an explanation.

4). Refer to the inconvenience caused. 5). Suggest how the matter should be settled.

Guidelines of Writing2. Rules of adjustment and settlement The following are the rules for replying to complaints and claims. (1)Take the complaint or claim seriously. (2)Explain what has happened and why it happened. (3)Ask for necessary cooperation from the customer.

Guidelines of Writing(4)Do not shirk responsibility. If you are

wrong, you should admit your mistake and apologize sincerely. You can state that you will never try every effort to prevent the error from happening again, but the trouble is caused by other people, you may promise to contact them and resolve the problems.

(5)End with a friendly, positive comment.

Specimen Letter-1 (Complaining about wrong goods delivered)

February 10, 2013Dear Sirs

Our Order No. 4312We duly received the documents and took deliveryof the goods on arrival of the s.s. “Isabella” at Hamburg. We are much obliged to you for the promote execution of this order. Everything appears to be correct and in good condition except in case No. 71.Unfortunately, when we open this case we found it contained completely different articles, and we can only presume that a mistake was made and the contents of this case were for another order.

As we need the articles we ordered to complete deliveries to our new customers, we must ask you to arrange for the dispatch of replacements at once. We attach a list of the contents of case No. 71, and shall be glad if you will check this with our order and the copy of your invoice. In the meantime we are holding the above-mentioned case at your disposal; please let us know what you wish us to do with it.

Yours faithfully Ali Albert

Encl. Survey report

Specimen Letters-2 (Settlement of wrong delivery)

February 18, 2013

Dear Sirs,

Your Order No 43120 per s. s. “Isabella”

Thank you for your letter of February 10 informing

us that the consignment was delivered promptly.

We appreciate your straightforwardness in pointing

out that case No.71 did not contain the goods you

ordered.

On going into the matter we find that a mistake was

indeed made in the packing through a confusion of

numbers, and we have arranged for the right goods

to be dispatched to you at once. Relative documents will be mailed as soon as they are ready.Please keep case No. 71 and its contents until called for by our Commercial Counsellor’ s Office, whom we have informed of the matter accordingly.We were sorry for the trouble caused you by the error and wish to assure you that care will be taken in the execution of your further orders.

Yours sincerely , David Zhao

Specimen Letter-3 (Complaint about inferior quality)

21 March 2013

Dear Sirs，We duly received the documents and took delivery

of the dress materials supplied to our Order No.

LNG-521. We are much obliged to you for the

promote execution of this order.

After careful examination, however, we are both

surprised and disappointed to find that the quality of

these materials is certainly much below that of the

samples you sent us.

We are enclosing a cutting sample from the goods we received. You will admit that these materials do not come up to the sample on which we passed the order.As the materials are quite unsuited to the needs of our customers, we hold the goods at your disposal.Please look into the matter and let us know what you can do about it as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully, Mark Twain

Specimen letter-4 (Settlement of inferior quality)

March 30, 2012

Dear Sirs,

We regret very much to learn from your letter of

March 21 that you are not satisfied with the dress

materials supplied to your Order No. LNG-521.

Tracing our records, we find that there has been

some mistake in our selection of the materials

meant for you.

We are very sorry for this carelessness on our part.

To settle the problem, we would like either to

replace the inferior materials as soon as possible or

to give you a special allowance of 30% for the

invoice amount.

We apologize once more for any inconvenience our

mistake may have caused you and look forward to

your decision as to which of the above two

adjustments is preferable to you.

Yours faithfully,

John Wendy

Specimen letter-5 (Claim for improper packing) GREGORY CORPORATION

359 Moonstone Street, Karachi, PakistanTel: (61) 2-87869923 E-mail: gregory@etang.com

21 August 2012Fair Textiles Import & Export Co.10 Guanghua Road Beijing, China

Dear Sirs,

Our order Number HK-285 for 40 cartons of woolen carpets was received on August 18. But we regret to say that 11 cartons were found broken and the carpets in them were soiled. This was obviously due to improper packing.

Needless to say, we have suffered a great loss from this as we cannot possibly deliver the merchandise in this condition to our customers. We, therefore, have to ask you to give us a 15% allowance on the invoice value or we will return the soiled carpets to you and ask for replacement.We hope you will give our suggestion your most favorable consideration and let us have your decision at an early date.

Faithfully yours, Alexandria

Specimen letter-6 (Declining a claim)August 28, 2012

Dear Mr. Stone,

We regret to learn from your letter of August 21 that 11cartons of carpets shipped under your order No. HK-285 were found soiled and we are required to grant you a 15% allowance on the invoice value of the order.We took your case seriously and have looked into the matter in detail. The packing department of our company informed us that the carpets were properly

packed first in waterproof paper and then in double thickness of canvas as stipulated in the contract. Furthermore, the clean B/L covering the goods indicates that they were received for shipment in apparent good condition. Therefore, we are certain that the damage must have occurred through careless handling in transit.Such being the case, we are afraid that we cannot accept your request. We would advise that you take up the case with the shipping company and have the claim settled to your satisfaction.

Faithfully yours, Li Jun

Specimen letter -7 （ Claim for short weight ）

Victory Trading Company Ltd.80 Victory Street P. O. Box 4199 Auckland, New Zealand

Tel: (09) 5000006 E-mail: victory4199@gmail.com May 16, 2012Shandong Foodstuff Trading Co., Ltd202 Huihuang Street, Zibo, Shandong, ChinaDear Sirs，

Our Order No. 07223We refer to our Order No. 07223 in connection with the foodstuff which was shipped per S.S. “Victoria” and discharged at London.On its arrival at the destination, the shipment was found of short weight.

We now lodge claims with you as follows:Claim number Claim for Amount 49 short weight USD 3,500.00Enclosed you will find a copy of Inspection Certificate No. 07189 with our statement of claims, which amounts to USD 3,500.00.We are looking forward to a satisfactory conclusion of the matter.

Yours sincerely, Susan

Specimen letter-8 (Settlement of short weight)May 23, 2012

Dear Sirs,Your Order No. 07223

With reference to your letter of June 20, 2011, a claim has been lodged for a short delivery. We express our deepest regret over the unfortunate incident.While we regret this unfortunate incident, we must point out that the rice underwent physical weighing by independent surveyors and the superintend of a shipping company at our end. The Shanghai Commodity Inspection Bureau had also carefully inspected the goods before they were shipped as evidence by their certificate now in your possession.

We don’t think we should be responsible for the shortage. It must due to pilferage while the goods were in transit under such circumstances.We therefore suggest that you make a claim Immediately against the Insurance Company. If you will send us the papers which show exactly the shortage of the shipment that reach you, we will take up the matter for you with a view to recoveringthe shortage in weight from the Insurance Company.We are looking forward to your quick reply.

Yours sincerely, David Li

Specimen letter-9 (Claim against an insurance company)

June 10, 2012Dear Sirs,

Re: Claim on TeaWe are holders of the insurance Policy No. 8875 issued by your company on 500 cases of tea valued at stg. 20,000. The ship encountered heavy weather, and 200cases were damages by sea water. We are enclosing the certificate of survey, also the Policy, which is against W.P.A.Your promote attention is appreciated. Yours faithfully, Jenny Albert

Specimen letter-10 (Claim settlement from the insurance company)

June 17, 2012Dear Sirs,

Re: Your Claim on TeaWe are very sorry to learn from your letter of June 10, with enclosures, claiming for damages caused by sea water on 200 cases of tea. We have studied the Survey Certificate and the Insurance Policy carefully. We also sent a representative to look into this matter, and found what you stated in your letter is true. Your claim is responsible. We have credited to your account pound sterling 8,000 to cover the value of the damaged goods.We hope you will do more business with us.

Yours faithfully, Zhou Xiao

• Called the “Seven Cs” , the principles for business communication put forward by professor Emeritus Herta A. Murphy, University of Washington, and her two colleagues in University of Michigan are completeness, correctness, clarity, conciseness, concreteness, courtesy, consideration. “Seven Cs” refer to the evaluation of foreign letters in the word choice, sentence structure, content, tone, attitudes and other aspects of business letter writing. Effective application of the “Seven Cs” principles can create a miracle in business communication.

Further Refinement

• Every business letter writer can be trained to write effective ones to build longstanding business relations. Sometimes a bit changes in the choices of words or expressions can make big differences, producing quite contrasting effects.

• Study how the underlined parts have been refined in the second mail and thus what differences the improvements may make.

Further Refinement

• The original mail• Dear Ms. Green,

• I have recently received a copy of your e-mail of June 26, 2008 to our Customers Service Manager, Rosa Black and would like to inform you that the manager responsible for your unfortunate experience has been notified.

• Please accept my apologies for the lack of service you encountered.• I have enclosed a Sunflower rental certificate valued at CN$50 and hope we can

show you the service you have come to expect from Sunflower.• Should you require my services, please feel free to call me at (614) 221-1677.

• Sincerely yours, • Robert Nielson, Supervisor• Vancouver Operations

The refined mail• Dear Ms. Green,

• I just read a copy of your e-mail of June 26, 2008 to our Customer Service Manager, Rosa Black and would like to express my apology for the lack of service you encountered. The manager responsible for your unfortunate experience has been notified.

• I have enclosed a Sunflower rental certificate valued at CN$50 and hope we can show you the kind service you should expect from Sunflower.

• If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to call me at (614) 221-1677.

• Sincerely yours, • Robert Nielson, Supervisor• Vancouver Operations

KEY TO UNIT TWELVE

KEY TO UNIT TWELVEI. Translate the following sentences into English1. We regret to inform you that the goods received

are not in conformity your samples. 2. Upon examination, we found that many of the

goods were severely damaged, and the whole parcel is quite useless to u

3. We have taken delivery of our order No. 227. But much to our regret, only 326 cases were found against the 600 cases in the packing list.

4. You have confirmed acceptance of our order, but to our surprise, we have not yet received the goods or any advice from you when we may expect delivery.

5. With regard to the loss in weight, we are enclosing a surveyor’s report in order to prove to you the loss could be only have occurred in transit.

6. We regret these faulty goods were sent to you, and have today sent a replacement. We hope you will be pleased with the new lot.

7. We were sorry for the trouble caused to you by the error and wish to assure you that care will be taken in the execution of your further orders.

8. On investigation, we find that the mistake was indeed made in the packing through the confusion of numbers.

II. Correct the mistake in each of the following questions.

1. allowance 2. entitled 3. packing 4. falls on 5. by 50 sets

III. Refine the following business mail to achieve better effect.　 • Dear Mr. Chen,

• We did not need the TA cost data. Surely this effort has resulted in a regrettable loss of time for you as well as for us. From now on, would you please be absolutely sure about our needs before starting your market research?

• Regards,

• Michael Kim

IV. Write a letter of claim based on the information below.

• Dear Sirs,

• The 300 transistor radios under our Order No. ASS321 have been delivered on February 20.

• After we examined the shipment carefully, we found that one third of them are not up to the quality of the sample you send us. We are enclosing a copy of the Survey report No. (07)2315 issued by China Commodity inspection Bureau. We have no choice but ask you to replace the radios of inferior quality.

• Please look into the matter as soon as possible and let us know what you can do about it. Otherwise, we’ll cancel the order, and claim compensation.

• Yours faithfully,• Li Jun