Audrey Fell-Smith, service manager at Wellington's Central Citizen's Advice Bureau joined Jesse Mulligan to talk about how to write an effective complaint letter.
Photo: Creative Commons
Her first tip – keep it short.
“Be short, concise and stick to the facts. Don’t make the letter any more than an A4 size because everyone’s going to get bored reading it.”
Be polite, she says, because rudeness puts people off straight away.
State at the beginning of the letter that it is a letter of complaint, so the recipient knows exactly what the letter is about, she says.
“Say what the problem is, what happened, when, where, why what, how, and then specify exactly how you would like to see the problem resolved,” she says.
Giving a deadline is a good idea, she says.
“Give people so many days to reply to you, maybe five to ten working days.
“State in letter that if you don’t hear you are, for example, going to take the matter to the disputes tribunal.
“Knowing that you will escalate, have got the evidence and you will take it further, generally will have a good result.”
Keep the emotion out, she says.
“Just state the basic facts, what the issue is, what the product is, just state it.”
Further advice is available at the CAB website. Type in complaints and there are tips and templates of complaint letters.
