Business Correspondence – Communicating with an External Vendor
Overview
In working with clients or colleagues, it’s imperative to strike the right balance in tone, arrangement and content. In some ways, short correspondence and communication (letters and emails) is the most important on-the-job writing you will do. The correspondence portfolio is your opportunity to demonstrate effective business writing through examples of everyday business communication.
For this project you will demonstrate your ability to apply writing strategies toa specific situation in response to the situation provided below. You will also include a cover memo written to your instructor that outlines the challenges you faced and strategies you used in completing the messages.
Scenario: Communicating with an External Vendor
You are the owner of the Park City Brewhouse, a local restaurant that has recently started using mobile point-of-sale systems; these systems allow customers to pay their check directly to a server on a tablet, rather than having to walk to the register (or wait for the server to process their check and receipt). You integrated the system to speed up customer turnover, and also reduce the need for lines at a register. You purchased the app and hardware for this system from the vendor SaleSpeed, who supplied tablets, electronic card readers, and use of their app for a monthly payment.
Recently Ella Ginsberg, a representative of SaleSpeed, reached out to you to encourage you to upgrade to a newer version of the app that includes improved functionality for tracking sales; this upgrade is optional, and would require you to increase your monthly payments for the app by 10%.
You are interested in this upgraded plan; however, you’ve been dissatisfied with how SaleSpeed’s electronic card readers function. Servers complain that they’re unreliable and sometimes don’t work. You’ve previously reached out to SaleSpeed’s technical support and customer service about this and been told “they are working on the issue” and that they hoped to have newer models of the readers available as upgrades within the next two months, and that you’d be notified when these were available for purchase.
In your email response to Ms. Ginsburg, your challenge is to restate your complaint about the card readers and request either a refund on the card readers or a discount on your monthly payment.
A Note on The Scenario: The specific details (background context, reasons, specific policy language, etc.) given for the scenario is obviously somewhat minimal. In developing your response,, you are welcome to imagine/”make up”/fill in whatever details you deem necessary to make your responses seem effective and realistic. However, your responses shouldn’t change the basic “facts” given in these scenarios.
Cover Memo Guidelines
In addition to writing, your final draft should include a cover memo (addressed to your instructor). In your memo, please:
• Include three distinct sections that describe your choices for each of the above scenarios.
• For each scenario, briefly describe the writing strategies and rhetorical reasoning behind your writing. Specifically, please address the following questions:
o What were your goals for your audience for this message? (What did you want to accomplish as a result of this message? What did you want your audience to believe, feel, and/or do?) Remember, you may have multiple goals, such as taking a specific action, feeling positively about you/the company, understanding the requirements of a policy, reducing the need for further communication, etc.
o What strategies did you use to accomplish this goal? Draw the strategies and frameworks covered in BCE and that we discussed in class to describe your choices. For example, was your approach direct or indirect? How did you organize your message? Did you use AIDA? How did you use logic or emotion to appeal to the audience? What kind of tone were you aiming for? How did you focus on the positive? How did you work to build or maintain relationships? Explain why you saw these as appropriate and effective strategies to use to achieve your goals for the audience.
Evaluation Criteria
Adaptation and Organization. The responses demonstrate an understanding and effective application of genre conventions for everyday business communication. Organizational strategies are clear, effective and appropriate. The writer understands organizational strategies and is able to adapt them to specific rhetorical situations.
Content. The writer includes specific, focused requests, explanations, goodwill, and/or instructions with appropriate use of buffer or context, when needed. Evidence to support requests or claims is clear, accessible and written from the reader’s perspective.
Style, Tone and Design. The messages are correct and concise. Tone is appropriate to the rhetorical situation but is in all ways professional, approachable, conversational and tailored to the specific audience. Design conventions are followed accurately.