Adjustment Letter: Analyzing a Business Communication Case Study

This case study presents an adjustment letter written by Kelvin Christie, Brand Director of Clarity Consulting, addressing a critical error in a campaign for Marcy Williams. The letter apologizes for issues with printed banners and town hall information packages, which resulted in spelling errors and missing pages. The issues stemmed from a printing subcontractor's mistakes and a last-minute editing request. The letter details the investigation, identifies the causes, and proposes a solution involving a 50% refund to the client, with the printing company bearing 25% of the adjustment. The letter also includes a cc to the CEO and a bibliography of relevant sources. The case highlights the importance of accuracy, quality control, and effective communication in public relations and business operations, particularly in crisis management scenarios. The case uses full block style and creative details, including addresses, contact numbers, explanations, quality control (QC) measures, and solutions. The case also uses full block style for the letter, as outlined in the Survival Guide for Business Letters.

RUNNING HEAD: ADUSTAMENT LETTER
ADUSTAMENT LETTER
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Sender: Kelvin Christie,
Brand Director,
Clarity Consulting,
Helen Saunbders,
768 Cant Street,
Ottawa, K1A0B1,
Canada,
July 4, 2019,
Receiver: The manager,
Marcy Williams Campaign Inc.,
463, canning Avenue
Montreal,
Canada,
Q3H3YZ
Subject: adjustment letter
Dear sir,
As the Brand director of Clarity, I am making a humble apology from our end, for the
inconvenience caused to you, though all mishaps were the results of a few miserable accidents,
which are completely unexpected and not a single employee of Clarity has witnessed such a

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mishap, during the decades-long history of Clarity, to work for Canadian several political parties
as well as individual politicians in Canada.
The printing subcontractor, which was used for the printing of the banners, was not working
properly due to a massive fire. After a thorough investigation I have found that the fire was the
result of narrow minded and unethical strategy of one of our competitors. This was the reason
why we had to hire another printing subcontractor. In other words, Clarity used another local
Vancouver printing service popular as Green Ink Inc. for the purpose of printing the banners as
well as the packages regarding town hall information. The blunder was one by the very printing
subcontractor, with which our company was not familiar at all.
The spelling of the candidate’s name was correct before proof reading procedure of the dual-
layered editing process. At the time of final proof reading when files are inside the machine, in
the word format an unexpected incident occurred. A well-meaning engaged in the work of proof
reading assumed that name was misspelled and with the intention to make this project a success,
she changed the spelling of the candidate’s first name from “Marcy” to “Mary”.
One of the crucial factors behind this blunder was the request for a last minute’s editing which, I
have discovered after reviewing all the internal emails sent and received. My investigation has
revealed that, the issues regarding the missing out of the last page occurred, as Clarity had
received a request for a last minute change directly. The request was received by Wayne Skinner,
one off the team member assign with the responsibility of the package for the town hall

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information. It I true that, Skinner incorporated the last page into the whole soft copy of the
package design, but, due to a substantial delay in receiving the request, Skinner forgot to save the
last minutes changes before placing the order of printing to Green Ink Inc.
After a review of the scenario, Clarity has decided that, the payment related issues can be solved
through a process of adjustment. The printing company should be responsible for a minimum of
25% of the adjustment. Hence, the company can assure you a refund of 50% of the total payment
received. Thanking you.
Sincerely,
Kelvin Christie
Kelvin Christie
Cc: Thom Wollcott, Chief Executive Officer, Clarity Consulting.

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Bibliography
Basuroy, S., C. Gleason, K. and H. Kannan, Y., 2014. CEO compensation, customer satisfaction,
and firm value. Review of Accounting and Finance, 13(4), pp.326-352.
Fu, H., Wu, D.C., Huang, S.S., Song, H. and Gong, J., 2015. Monetary or nonmonetary
compensation for service failure? A study of customer preferences under various loci of
causality. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 46, pp.55-64.
Liu, Y., Zhou, J. and Chen, Y., 2014. Using fuzzy non-linear regression to identify the degree of
compensation among customer requirements in QFD. Neurocomputing, 142, pp.115-124.
Roschk, H. and Gelbrich, K., 2014. Identifying appropriate compensation types for service
failures: A meta-analytic and experimental analysis. Journal of Service Research, 17(2), pp.195-
211.

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