Project 1:
Letter in Response to a Complaint

We will write a preliminary draft in class on Thursday, January 16. You will then take the in-class writing home, modify it, think about it, revise it, and type it out, formatting it properly as a piece of written business correspondence (in printed letter form). A more polished rough draft will be due on Tuesday, January 21. After peer review, you will revise the letter again and submit the final packet on Thursday, January 23. The final packet will contain all drafts, including the in-class draft. The clean final draft should be on top, stapled, just under the grading sheet/rubric. Please put your name on the rubric.

Here’s the scenario:

You work for Amazon.com as a Customer Service Associate. The letter of complaint will concern the following item:

Roman","serif"; font-size: 21.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 24.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;”>Lucien Piccard Men’s 98660 YG11 Excalibur Silver Textured Dial Gold Ion-Plated Stainless Steel Watch

The item can be seen at:’

http://www.amazon.com/Lucien-Piccard-98660-YG-11-Excalibur-Ion-Plated/dp/B00C27R8H2/ref=sr_1_16?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=watches&ie=UTF8&qid=1389158134&sr=1-16

You can also search for Lucien Piccard 98660 YG11 on Amazon.com to see the item.

Prepare yourself by looking at the item AND going to http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=15015721
to review Amazon.com’s returns policy. I suggest you print out this document AND the Lucien Piccard refund policy, which is located on the item page at Amazon.com, and bring these with you to class on the day we write so that you can compose a reasonable response to whatever the customer’s complaint may be.

Most importantly, begin this assignment by reading and annotating Chapter 14 in Markel. All of your work this term has been evaluated in terms of the criteria Markel mentions in every chapter for the type of writing or the type of publication that we’re currently learning about and practicing. This piece of writing will be a printed letter in response to the customer’s complaint. You will receive the complaint letter in class on Monday and you will be able to assess it and respond as well as possible in class.

Please note: You will receive three grades for this project: The quality of your in-class response (January 16), the quality of your peer review (January 21), and the quality of your two revisions and your revised final product (due January 23). This project is worth a total of 120 points.

Some key limitations for you as you complete this assignment: You are only a Customer Service Representative. You must follow the Amazon Returns Policy to the letter and consider the Piccard warranty. You are not allowed to cut the customer any special deals or make up a solution to the problem that the printed Amazon Returns Policy does not explicitly permit with respect to Watches/Jewelry. Furthermore—you work for Amazon, not Lucien Piccard. Keep this in mind when you compose your response. Finally, read and use the information in the Markel text. Let your response reflect Markel’s directions and concerns.