CH 4 Assignment: Bad News Letter

*Be sure to have read the previous sections “Writing Effective Emails” and “Business Letter Types” (‘Bad News Letters,’ specifically) before completing this assignment.

Scenario: Customer John Smith has been working with you and your shop (or company/organization) for over ten years. He has ordered this kind of work before, and you have done this kind of work for him before. You thought it was an easy job so you asked a new employee to order the parts needed. You did not check their work because you were busy. Your employee ordered the wrong parts.

Ordinarily you would have had time to reorder the parts and still complete the order, but because there was an ice storm and the power was out for two days, you no longer have time to reorder parts and get the job done on time. You are going to be late, and you have to let John Smith know.

You always communicate with John Smith via email. Your task is to write an email to John Smith explaining why the job will not be completed on time.

Feel free to get a little creative by adding details, such as part names, industry-specific language (jargon), etc. You should also consider how you might resolve this issue or compensate John Smith.