Letters of Complaint Editing and Proofreading Services

The letter is four paragraphs of genuine fury: the company is a disgrace, the product is a joke, the customer has never been treated so appallingly in their life, and they will be telling everyone they know. Somewhere in the fourth paragraph, buried after the anger, is the actual fact — a fridge that has failed twice in the warranty period — and the specific remedy wanted, a replacement rather than a repair. The person opening this letter reads three paragraphs of a stranger's anger before finding the one sentence they can actually act on.

We edit what people write when something has gone wrong and they want it fixed — letters and emails of complaint to companies, retailers and service providers, complaints to a landlord or managing agent, complaints about a neighbour or a noise nuisance, formal complaints to a professional body or ombudsman, complaints following poor medical or care treatment, and the follow-up letter sent when a first complaint is ignored. Our editors work on letters written by someone who is angry and wants that anger to produce a result.

The remedy stated plainly is what makes a complaint letter work, and its failure is a letter that vents at length and never says what would fix it. A reader who does not know what you want cannot give it to you. We work through these so the facts are given first, in order, with dates, since a complaint handler is trying to work out what happened and cannot do that through paragraphs of description of how it felt; so exactly one remedy is named — replacement, refund, apology, an appointment rearranged — rather than several, given that a letter demanding a refund, an apology and compensation is easy to partially satisfy and call closed; so the emotion is present but brief, as one clear sentence about the impact does more than four angry ones and does not give the reader a reason to focus on tone instead of substance; so a deadline is given, because a letter with no date for a response can be filed rather than actioned; so any past correspondence is referenced with its date, given that a second letter which does not mention the first invites the reply "we have no record of this"; so insults, threats and exaggeration are removed entirely, as they hand the reader a reason to dismiss the letter rather than answer it; and so what happens if nothing is done is stated as a fact rather than a threat. Letters written this way get a response and often get the remedy.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including your complaint, any correspondence and personal circumstances. We are editors rather than lawyers, ombudsmen or consumer advisors, and we offer no view on your legal position or entitlement. What we can do is make sure the letter says clearly what happened and what you want done about it.