Another Look at Teaching the External Negative Message

Many traditionally aged students who take our business communications course lack business experience. As consumers themselves, however, most at some time have bought an unsatisfactory product or received an unsatisfactory service. Thus, they have some knowledge of consumer complaints. Starting from this familiar base, students can readily approach the writing of external negative messages and, later, more sensitive internal negative messages, such as rules changes or personnel problems. The external negative message therefore remains a good vehicle for teaching principles of negative messages. Hart, Heskett, and Sasser (1990) have demonstrated that business communicators must be aware of two facts that govern the structure and style of negative messages. First, bad news travels farther than good news. The recipient of good news tells about six other people while the recipient of bad news tells about eleven other people. Second, keeping an old customer is five times cheaper than finding a new one. Writers of business communications textbooks translate these principles into prescriptions for writing negative messages. A growing body of research questions textbook prescriptions, however. Locker found that did not affect reader response, that a strong resale was counterproductive in credit refusals (1982, p. 2). Brent (1985) has challenged the idea of using indirect structure characterized by lengthy buffers, suggesting that this tactic may be manipulative and wasteful of the reader's time. Salerno (1988) questions the rationale for using buffers in every negative message and focuses on teaching strategies that lead students to a more sophisticated analysis of audience than is present in most textbooks. Lemaye (1988) notes that promoting goodwill in a negative message depends on giving readers alternatives or solutions to their problems rather than on placement of the rejection itself. Campbell (1990), noting that textbook prescriptions fail to discuss how to write effective explanations in negative messages, provides a useful classification of five strategies from Speech Act Theory for writing polite refusals. These researchers' analyses of the shortcomings of textbook prescriptions are borne out in the practice of companies that engage in consumer correspondence as well. GATHERING INFORMATION In this exploratory study, I solicited negative letters from companies large enough to support consumer affairs departments. I then compared the structure, style, and diction of these letters to a list of features of negative letters derived from leading business communications textbooks, noted in the bibliography. While real examples generally follow the indirect structure recommended by textbook authors, they vary greatly from textbook models in style and diction. A major decision in this research was the choice of method for soliciting negative letters. Two possibilities were to write (1) a complaint or (2) an open request for samples. The former possibility was discarded on ethical as well as practical grounds. For example, a dummy complaint might be so atypical as to elicit atypical responses not useful for the study. Thus, I requested sample letters openly, even though this method resulted in a lower response rate than the former method would have. (Two companies responded that they do not honor such requests.) I requested samples of negative letters sent to customers from 57 consumer affairs professionals who are members of the Great Lakes Chapter of the Society of Consumer-affairs Professionals in Business. The Great Lakes Chapter has 104 members when students, other academics, or people (such as retired members) who gave home addresses, were excluded. My letter to them gave a rationale for the request and a sample negative letter from a business communications textbook to illustrate the kind of message being studied. The request assured respondents of anonymity and promised that sample messages would not be reproduced. …