The power of a letter....

Today, I am a believer in the power of the letter. Growing up, a letter was my mother’s answer to all of the ills in the world. Any time anything would anger her or strike her as unfair or unjust, my mom would immediately grab a pen and declare, “I’m writing a letter!” We used to tease her about this incessantly. Any time she complained, we would hand her a pen and tell her to write a letter. Today, however, I have to admit to being a convert. Mom, I am now a believer.

Tuesday afternoon, we had a technician from a local handyman service at our house to repair our dryer, which had stopped working the previous week. We had used this service in the past and had been quite pleased with them. The technician they sent on Tuesday appeared, at least to me, to have no concept of how to repair a dryer. He was at our house for three hours before finally diagnosing the problem…a bad thermostat. During the course of those three hours, he told us that the motor was fine, but the timer was bad. Then he told us that no…the motor was bad. Then he told us that the motor and the timer were bad. At that point he quoted us over $300 to repair it. I had no desire to pay $300 to repair a dryer that I can replace with a brand new one for fairly close to that. When I told him I did not want to replace the motor and the timer, he went downstairs to my laundry room to put the dryer back together. A while later, he came back up and said that he had found the real problem. Apparently, it was the thermostat. At that point, he left to get a part. In the end, I was charged $295.50 for him to replace the thermostat. The part cost $33. The remainder was the 3 hours it took him to diagnose the problem. I could have replaced my dryer for nearly that. Needless to say, I felt like I had been royally screwed.

Yesterday, I wrote a letter. Actually, since it is 2010, I crafted an email rather than an actual pen and paper letter, and sent it to the office manager for the handyman company. My email was polite, yet firm. It outlined my frustrations in detail, yet remained courteous. I ended on a positive note, indicating that I would like to find a way to restore the faith in their company that had been lost during this unfortunate service call.

Last night, I received a phone call from the office manager who had received my email. She was an extremely nice woman. She indicated that my business was important to the company. In the end, after discussing the details of the service call, she understood my frustrations and agreed to take $150 off of the cost of my service call…an extremely reasonable resolution, as far as I was concerned. I have since received two emails from her this morning assuring me that she was sending my $300 check back and would bill me for only $150.

So my mom was right….a fact I don’t often admit. A good, well-composed, gracious letter can make all the difference in the world. Of course, I don’t know how gracious my mom’s letters were way back when her eyes were glowing red with anger and her blood pressure was through the roof. Regardless, she had the concept right. So all of you disgruntled people out there...get writing! Let’s start a movement. An articulacy (yes, that’s a word) movement. Show off that impressive vocabulary, people! Gooooooooo literacy!!