Business writing

Assignment 1 Social Media Packet

PART 1: Yelp Response

The background. A customer posts the following complaint about a branch of the national company

QuickMovez. The review was posted on the website Yelp.com:

Written by Carol K. in St. Louis, MO

Hello -

I've held off on writing this in a good faith effort to let the managers of QuickMovez follow up with me

accordingly; however they have not.

I had a 12p-2p window start time for my move on the 30th. I receive a call at 12p stating that the crew was

"held up" at a previous move and would arrive at 3p (one hour later than the window). I made it clear I had

my elevator reserved until 5p, and that it was important they made it in time.

So three pm rolls around. Nothing. I call them back only to hear that they need to call ME BACK to let me

know what's going on. They call back and say they'll be there for 5p now. That's three hours later than the

window, and right when my elevator reservation ends.

Oh... and if someone from QuickMovez is tempted to respond publicly to this review apologizing and asking

me to contact them, don't do it. I have contacted you so many times without resolution, I'm not going to

allow you the satisfaction of appearing to save face in a public forum.

The assignment. You work at the corporate office of QuickMovez as their social media manager. Write a

response to this customer to be posted on Yelp.

PART 2: Internal Memo

The background. Unfortunately, before you can post your comment, someone from the local office

posts following response:

Dear Carol,

While I appreciate your “feedback,” what I don’t appreciate is being blamed for a mistake that a customer

made. If I recall correctly, you were too busy with your whiney kids to listen to my explanation of the error

that YOU made. Next time, ask your husband to help you deal with business matters.

Also, I shouldn’t be blamed because you don’t know how to keep a schedule. I also find it hard to believe that

you contacted our office managers because no one has called me regarding this incident. Good luck finding

someone else to put up with your attitude.

Sincerely,

Blake

The response goes viral on social media after a blogger posts it under the title “The Invisible Burden of

Conducting Business as a Woman.”

The assignment. Embarrassed by the bad publicity, the upper management of QuickMovez realizes that

they need to respond to this incident. First, the internal response: The company has no policy in place

for dealing with customer complaints.

Because of your role as Social Media Manager, you have expertise in this area. Therefore, they have

asked you to develop a set of guidelines that employees can reference when they receive a complaint—

whether the complaint is in-person, over the phone, or online. You need to distribute these guidelines

as a memo to all QuickMovez employees.

PART 3: Public Statement

The assignment. Upper management also needs an external response to this incident, and they’ve

asked you to write it. This is beyond your normal responsibilities, and you hope it is a sign that your

bosses are considering you for promotion.

They’ve asked you to write a public statement apologizing for Blake’s rude response to Carol K. Your

statement will likely be about 2-3 paragraphs. It will be released to various media outlets and posted on

the company’s website.

(Hint: In crafting your response, use what you’ve learned about effective and ineffective apology

statements from the readings and discussion board posts.)

Grading criteria

A successful Social Media Packet will demonstrate:

• Coherency throughout the documents—for example, the guidelines for dealing with customer

complaints (Part 2) will be replicated in your initial response (Part 1);

• Thoughtfully crafted content that will make the documents useful to their audiences and achieve

your own goals for writing them;

• Attention to document design and the structuring of information—particularly in the internal

memo to employees;

• Understanding of potential audiences (both primary and secondary) for each document;

• Careful editing for tone, style, concision, and formal grammar and punctuation.