Business Email: How to Turn a Complaint into a Suggestion

Hi everyone, I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer. If you've been following me, then you know that I recently traveled to Paris. It was a wonderful trip overall. I'm here, back in Massachusetts, and as you can see, I'm at my desk. There's something I'd like to share with you. Well, if you'd followed me, you know that there were a couple of problems that came up during the trip. And, well, the first one has been resolved. It was with Lufthansa. When we arrived in Paris, we did not receive our luggage, and it was delayed. It wasn't lost, it was delayed. It was back in Frankfurt. It took time to reach us in Paris, even when it was in Paris. I waited three days to receive my suitcase, and my children had to wait five days to receive theirs. During that time, we did incur some expenses. We had to buy toiletries, some clothing, and today, here, back at home, I was able to submit my receipts and a request for reimbursement. So, fingers crossed, and perhaps I will be reimbursed. But, of course, the important thing is that we did receive our luggage before our trip ended, and I'm happy to say that once we came back to Boston, our luggage arrived as well. So, we were able to leave the airport with our suitcases here in Boston. Now, the second thing that came up was a fine in the Paris metro, and I accept that when you break a rule, there's a consequence. It still is upsetting a little bit because it was something that could have been avoided if we had known about the rule that we ended up breaking. So, this is not about anger. It's not about venting. I had my moments later at the hotel to complain to sympathetic hotel staff who listened to me, and they told me their stories about being fined as well. But what I decided to do, actually, at the urging of one of the hotel staff members was to write. And it's really not about complaining. It's more about making a suggestion at this point. I want to be constructive. This is not about being critical, but being constructive, because I really believe that I am not alone in this experience. In fact, I saw this happen to other tourists, and I believe that it's something that could be avoided. It could be reduced if further action were taken by the RATP. That's the Paris Metropolitan Transport System, or something like that. Transport system or transit system. The RATP. And I want to emphasize, by the way, that the majority of workers were very kind, helpful, patient. A lot of them spoke English, and even when they didn't, they were so patient, as I tried with my limited French to explain things that I needed. So they were there, ready to help. It was overall a very positive experience. But we did get fined our final night, because we didn't have a valid ticket. So I had one, my son had one, my daughter had one, but on the way out, she had thrown it away. There's trash bins in the metro, and she threw her ticket away. And as we were exiting, they checked for tickets. She didn't have one, and they were so no-nonsense. It was like cash or credit card. You pay a fine, 50 euros. So we did. I believe that other tourists have been, not believe, I know, have been fined for this, are probably being fined even today, and will continue to be fined for this violation, because we're simply not aware. So again, I want to be constructive and offer a suggestion. So what we're going to look at together is an email that I drafted. In fact, I sent it off already via the RATP website, and just to be sure that someone receives it, I also submitted it via private message on Facebook. So it's my hope that someone will receive the suggestion and take it into consideration. My goal right now is to share it with you, because perhaps it will be useful for you to see how I approached this. How did I organize it, and what kind of wording did I use to offer my suggestion? Let's take a look. Okay, let's look at the overall organization first. We have a greeting. I wrote a lot, so it's broken into paragraphs. I always suggest that. Closing signature. You can tell by the closing this is a formal email. Best regards. However, I did not use the highest level of formality. I could have used Dear Sir or Madam. I don't know who's going to be reading this. However, in most business correspondence today, Hello is fine. It's acceptable. It's polite. It's certainly more concise. So I believe that Hello works in this situation just fine. I also decided to open up immediately, state my purpose, what's my intention, why am I writing this. I give some background information, and I start with a little bit of positive before I get to the main issue. I explain the issue in detail. Right around here is where I start to make a call to action. It's a suggestion. I repeat that request at the end. So that's the basic approach I used. Again, you'll see a level of formality here. I use no contractions. I use polite language like I would like to. Okay, let's read through. Hello, I would like to offer a suggestion based on my recent trip to Paris from the 15th to the 21st of August 2023. A quick note here is if I were writing to an American company, I would have used month, day, year. Since my reader is in Europe, I decided to use the more common format in Europe, which is day or day, month, year. So I'm trying to meet them halfway here from the 15th through the 21st of August. Okay, my two teenage children and I navigated the Paris metro for the first time. On the whole, our experience was positive. Metro workers were patient when helping us purchase the necessary tickets. Over the course of our seven-day stay, we bought a combination of tickets, including Paris visit or and single-use tickets. However, while safety rules are clearly visible to metro users, the rules of ticket usage are not. No one explained the need to have tickets upon exiting a station. We learned the hard way. On the evening of the 20th of August 2023, again I'm using that more common format in Europe, while exiting at Alma-Marseille, that's a station, we were stopped by security and requested to present our tickets. It was our final night in Paris, and we had bought single-use tickets. I had retained my ticket, as had my son, but my daughter had just thrown hers away in a trash can in the metro. Since she could not present a valid ticket, she was immediately fined 50 euros. We had to present my daughter's passport for the ticket to be written up. I paid the fine by cash and received a receipt. And here, since I looked at the online form, by the way, there's no option to upload or make an attachment, so I'm writing some of the details from the ticket here. Later, on the way back into the station, we saw more tourists being stopped and fined for the same reason, which gave the strong impression that tourists are targeted for this infraction. While we recognized that we violated a rule of the RATP, we wished to emphasize that we were not aware that the rule existed. I later spoke with a metro cashier at Porte-de-Clichy, it's another station, and she pointed to a set of rules in small print at the far end of the lobby. I suspect that few tourists see those rules. We certainly did not. What tourists see is the information posted around the ticket counter regarding pricing. We also see information posted around the ticket machines, on the platforms, and in the trains. If you wish to inform all passengers of the rules, then I strongly recommend posting the rules along with a visual aid, e.g. meaning, for example, a hand holding a ticket at every ticket machine with the reminder in French and other common languages of visiting tourists. Hold on to your validated ticket at all times, or please retain your validated ticket until you exit the metro. Paris is a favorite tourist destination, and thousands of us enjoy visiting your wonderful city. Unfortunately, the experience of being fined for a rule that we were not aware of affects our impression of Paris and the quality of our stay. If you wish for tourists to follow the rules, the RATP must take greater measures to educate us. Fining passengers who are often unaware of the rules is not the best means. Thankfully, we had plenty of other encounters with kind Parisians inside and outside of the metro that offset this negative experience, but it is unnecessary to make this a common experience among tourists who arrive with the wish to enjoy and appreciate the beauty of your city. I hope you will take my suggestion into consideration to improve the service and experience of the RATP. Thank you for your attention. Best regards That's all for now. Please remember to like and share the video if you found the lesson useful. As always, thanks for watching and happy studies! 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