This activity is designed to allow you to practice professional, concise writing by responding to a disgruntled customer complaint in a thoughtful and courteous manner. Your response will show use of either direct or indirect communication patterns, as well as demonstrated awareness of the key elements of business writing.

Overview

Go to the Colonnade Hotel and Resort Case Study and read the information under the four tabs (all four of the tabs contain significant parts of the assignment).

Scenario

You are the General Manager of a hotel in Florida and you've just received a complaint email from a disgruntled customer who was unable to get in a room at your hotel due to overbooking. The customer prepaid and booked 8 months in advance and not only sent you a complaint email, but also posted a negative review on TripAdvisor and Twitter as well as posted a video showing his negative experience when attempting to check in to a room.

Weekly Task / Activity (Question #3 of Your Discussion Board Entry, Link Above)

Write an email to Mr. Ward in response to his complaint. In your message, you should acknowledge and apologize for the incident and invite Mr. Ward and his family to return to the hotel. You cannot offer Mr. Ward any benefits outside those specified in the hotel's Walking Procedures (found on the website). Your email response should be single-spaced and no longer than three paragraphs. Think about what you need to consider in your response. If done well, then your email will encourage Mr. Ward to post an update on TripAdvisor that presents Colonnade Hotel and Resort in a more positive light (without outright requesting this). You might consider how much detail to provide about the overbooking policy. Regardless of your rationale, overbooking may be difficult for even the most agreeable customer to accept.

Post your email response to Mr. Ward as #3 in the Considering the Rhetorical Situation