When things do go wrong with deliveries, a letter of apology to a customer and, in some cases, financial compensation or some other form of compensation, can go a long way to ensure that the customer not only remains loyal, but perhaps more importantly, doesn’t feel the urge to post negative comments on social media.
How do you aplogise to a customer for a problem with a delivery ?
A business apology letter should come from somebody who is accepting responsibility personally but apologising on behalf of the company. Even though they may not have been ‘personally’ responsible for the error, it is better that the sender of the letter takes full responsibility onto their shoulders, so to speak. Alternatively, another way is to take responsibility collectively by using the word “we”. If you have an explanation for the error, you should state it and also offer to make some kind of gesture to help put things right.
Letter apologising for items that didn’t arrive -sample 1
[Your business address]
[Customer’s address]
Date
Dear [Customer’s name]
Re: [Ordered item]
I was very concerned to hear that you have not received the [item], which shoud have been dispatched to you a week ago.
(The following sentence is optional but include it if you’d like to show your customer what a rare occurrence non-deliveries are)
I have made inquiries and have discovered in this instance, one of our internal procedures failed. This is a very rare instance which happens no more than once a year, although of course we try and take steps to eradicate it completely.
I hope that you will accept our sincere aplogies for this inconvenience. To make amends, I am sending you the [item] by special delivery. In addition, as you are a highly valued customer, I am enclosing a [value] voucher, which can be redeemed against any item in store or online.
I do hope that this will go some way in restoring your faith in us.
Yours sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your position]
Letter aplogising for the wrong item received which was due to have been a Christmas present
[Your business address]
[Customer’s address]
Date
Dear [Customer’s name]
I am writing on behalf of [Company Name] to apologise for the wrong item being delivered to you recently.
We appreciate that the error also meant that you had insufficient time to have the correct order sent out in time for a Christmas delivery, especially as the item was meant to be a Christmas gift.
Although we do have very stringent procedures in place to ensure that orders are fulfilled correctly, I’m sure you can appreciate that the Christmas period is our busiest time of the year and, occasionally, the odd error in picking and packing the orders is, regrettably, inevitable.
We do, however, appreciate the difficulty you had and we would like to offer you a full refund on the order along with a [compensation e.g.£50 e-voucher] to, hopefully, go some way to compensating you for the inconvenience which resulted from our error. You can simply use the voucher as full or part payment against any of our items in our website and entering [a specific code for this order] into the promotional code box once you have begun the process of checking out.
I hope this is a satisfactory conclusion to this matter and, on behalf of the company, I apologise once again and hope that you will continue to shop with us in the near future as we do appreciate your loyal custom.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your position]
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