SHORT AND NOT SO SWEET

Individual and Group Reports on Case 5

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 Table of Contents
Life Force Insurance

INTER- OFFICE MEMORENDUM

Date July 13, 2020

No: 123 341 123
To: All the employees of Life Force Insurance
From: Conrad Underwood, President
Subject: Instructions about writing letters to clients and others.

Dear All,

I would like to instruct you to respond to the customers with more politeness and empathy rather than
being harsh in order to being brief.

As all of you know that I had insisted on brevity from all of our company writers. I instructed to keep the
letters as short as possible to make them easier to read and save our valuable time. But on a contrary I
have come to know that in correspondence to clients employees had been blunt rather than being brief. It
had made many of our valuable clients upset, which is totally not acceptable.

So I would like to instruct you to write very carefully and courteously while dealing with customers. You
have to be more considering and responsible while responding their queries and claims. It is our duty to
understand their situation and respond accordingly. Any further complaint letter about our writing style
will be taken on account strictly. So everyone is ought to be more responsible and caring while
responding to our respected clients.

On the other hand in regards to our inter office communication memos and other written documents will
remain brief as it is necessary to cut down the time to read them and make our work easier.

I hope we all wont give our clients any chance to complain further and work with full concentration to get
back their satisfaction and our good image.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation and feel free to let me know if you have any queries.

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July 13, 2020

Mrs. Nasima Chowdhury

Gulshan 1, Dhaka

Ref: Apology for unnecessary blunt letter

Dear Mrs. Chowdhury,

I am Conrad Underwood, president ofLife Force Insurance Ltd.You are a highly valued client of our
company and we share a strong association of last so many years. The purpose of this letter is to convey
my sincere apologies for the inconvenience you have experienced with us. Thank you for notifying us
with your complaint. I looked forward to the matter very seriously. We can understand you are going
through a very difficult situation. We are extremely sorry for your loss. We would like to convey our
deepest condolences to you. Our employee should not be too brief to the point of blunt in his reply. It
was not expected by you. We are very sorry for the unintentional mistake. I am personally working on
this problem to improve communication policy of our employees. Necessary steps have been already
taken against that employee who replied you tersely.

Mrs. Chowdhury, let me assure you that what happened in your case is not typical level customer
service of Life Force Insurance Ltd. We continue to be committed to provide you and all of our
customers with the highest standards of service in the industry. Every customer is equally valuable and
respectable to us. I have directed our responsible employees to complete your paperwork on an urgent
basis and handover your policy money as soon as possible. Hope this will be helpful for you.

I would again submit my heartfelt apologies on this situation and would request you to accept them. If
you have any other queries please don’t hesitate to call me at +880 01728490528.

Yours in service,

Conrad Underwood
President
Life Force Insurance Ltd
c.underwood@lifeforce.com

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July 13, 2020

Conrad Underwood
President
Life Force Insurance Ltd.
Uttara, Dhaka

Ref: Complaint letter regarding blunt and even rude tone of recent letters

Dear Sir,
I am writing to you today to explain a bad experience I had from the letters I recently received from your
company. I am a regular client of your business since so many years. I have been always treated as a
valued customer and was satisfied with your service. But in recent time I have received some letters
which are blunt and quite rude. I want to let you know that I am very upset with your staff’s
performance. This type of behavior is not expected from a renowned company like you.

I was both shocked and disappointed to have been treated in this way and believe you should be aware
of your employee’s inappropriate tone of replying their customers. I trust that this is not the way Life
Force Insurance Ltd. deals with their customers and you will mention my concern with Mr. Rashedul
Islam, (Executive, Insurance Claim Department) and take necessary action as early as possible.

I am open to discussing the matter further and hope that you will respond with a solution to prevent this
incident happening again.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Shamima Hossain
Gulshan, Dhaka

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 Individual Assignments

Life Force Insurance

14 Bing Street, Maryland

Date: July 14, 2020

Office Memorandum

Ref. Number : 432/2020

To : All the employees of Life Force Insurance

From : Conrad Underwood, Company President

Subject : Instructions on writing letters and memos.

We have received so many complaint letters from our clients about the short writings which
seemed to them very rude and blunt because of the harsh language. There will be some changes
in our policies to overcome this situation. We should maintain a good relationship with our
clients rather than hurting them by terse letters. Thus, try to be polite with them by your words
which will give a sense of intimacy and professionalism. For sensitive issues, please try to deal
with extra care and empathy by using soft language. It is very much okay if the letters are bit
long to empathize them. Again, if we get any complaint letter again regarding this issue, the
responsible employee will be penalized for such activities. This issue needs to be strictly handled
because our clients deserve our respect.

For the in-house communication, try to be very precise but understandable and keep it as short as
possible so that it saves our valuable time. There will be a training session on this matter which
you will be notified soon in details.

I hope to receive all of your cooperation.

July 13, 2020

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Sara Jones
289 Oxford Avenue
Maine, WI. 09410

Subject: Apology letter about the letter of claim.

Dear Madam,

It was with great sadness that I learned of your husband’s passing, please accept my heartfelt
condolences. I was extremely sorry to receive your complaint letter regarding our poor
communication and unprofessional behavior. I sincerely regret that you had to take the trouble of
writing to us about the irresponsibility of one of our employees. Please accept my earnest
apology for facing the poor quality of service on behalf of Life Force Insurance.

Life Force Insurance has been keeping its reputation by making our policyholders satisfied for
over the years. Some new policies were imposed in our company but the employees failed to
understand and follow the instructions. Due to this regrettable incident, I have taken the
necessary steps to avoid such mistakes from our employees and I can assure you that the same
incident will not be repeated in the future. Some new policies have been made and I am
personally going to initiate some training session to all of our employees. Also, you will get
another letter from us about the claim.

We always try to provide the best quality of service and keep our policyholders satisfied.
Hopefully you will continue to be a part of our journey and we are thankful to you for your
valuable feedback. Please contact me if you have any further concerns and stay with us.

Yours faithfully

Conrad Underwood
President of Life Force Insurance
c.underwood@lifeforce.com

July 12, 2020

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Life Force Insurance

14 Bing Street.

Maryland, CA 34555

Subject: Complaint letter about poor communication in claim letter.

Dear Life Force Insurance,

This is to notify you that I am issuing you a complaint letter for poor communication and
unprofessional behavior that I have received from your company. In the recent letter that I have
received from you concerning my husband’s death claim seemed quite impolite to me. I was
already in a shock and still I am not able to get over from the grief. For such a grieving spouse, a
person from the insurance company wrote a letter only having these two lines, “Death claim
granted, check attached forthwith”. That time I was not prepared to hear such things in a harsh
way and I could not control my tears. I somehow felt that those letters were rude toned and blunt.

My husband had been your policyholder for eight years. I am aware of that Life Force Insurance
is a well reputed company for many years. Hence, I expect from you the professionalism and
care that you have showed us over the years. I am sure you can realize the great disappointment
it has caused me.

I would like to know the proper reason and I want an explanation for such behavior. I look
forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully

Sara Jones

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 Individual Assignments

Life Force Insurance

MEMORENDUM

Date: July 13, 2020

To: All the employees of Life Force Insurance

From: Conrad Underwood, Company President

Subject: On the matter of writing memos and other written documents

In response to the complaints from customers I am asking you all to be empathetic while writing
to the customer.

Recently we are getting a lot of complaints from our customers. They are complaining about the
writing style of our letters to them. The letters are being written to harshly. As an insurance
company it is our responsibility to write to our customers with soft language as they are claiming
their money from us as they have lost something very much dear to them. So while writing
letters to them write to them with empathy. The letters can be a bit long to empathize with them.

Now the letters that will be used for internal communications should be as short as possible. The
time that is given to this prominent company is valuable. So the letters written among the
employees of this company should not take much time to read.

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13th July , 2020

President

Life Force Insurance Company Limited

Subject: Complaint Letter for bad language in claim letter.

Sir

I met my spouse when I was studying in college. Then we dated for 12 years. After 12 years we
were married. then my spouse perused my spouse’s dream, while I perused my dream. In this
long way we supported each other throughout. During the early years of our relationship I
behaved immaturely and I was stupid. But my spouse was supportive and understanding all the
time. My spouse was a brave person. My spouse always protested when my spouse saw
something wrong. My spouse was so aggressive yet so compassionate. Some years an insurance
policy was taken. According to that insurance policy if my spouse dies then I will get the
financial compensation. Now after my spouse’s death I have become a different person. It was a
huge shock. It is still not over it. In the meantime, the person from the insurance company
knocked my door and gave me a letter. In the envelop there was a check. They wrote two line on
the letter which says “Death claim granted, check attached forthwith” After reading those two
lines I broke into tears. Already I am grieving for my spouse and now they wrote me this. It was
like someone has hurt the injured place again with a knife. My spouse passed by but I think that
they should have shown the least respect to her. Rather they have hurt me again. I would like to
get an explanation for that what gave you the right to hurt me this bad. I would like to sue you as
well if I don’t get appropriate explanation.

Regards

Devid Johnson

1199 South Shore drive

California, USA

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Dear Devid Johnson,

My name is Conrad Underwood. I am president of Life Force Insurance. I was made aware by
our manager that an associate has treated you atrociously. The associate has used some harsh
words while writing to you. I feel embarrassed that you have to endure this letter. This type of
behavior is reprehensible. Please accept my sincerest apology.

I take these matters very seriously. After learning about the situation and having no doubt that
you were wronged. I have immediately warned the associate. I have also taken some steps to
punish this associate so that this doesn’t happen again. I value you and would like to offer a life
insurance in which you don’t have to pay a penny. I hope that this letter and the small gesture
will reconcile your heart.

We take pride in treating our clients with respect. We fell short of our standards. I have
personally initiated retraining of all our staffs. New initiatives will be put in place to reinforce
company policy of respect and honor. I shall make each staff member aware that there is zero
tolerance for any type of rude behavior. I shall not allow this to happen again.

I truly value you. I look forward to serving you. With your continuous support it is my vision to
offer you the best experience with exceptional service.

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Best Regards

Conrad Underwood

President

Life Force Insurance.

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1. In the role of Conrad Underwood, write a memo to all employees in which you instruct them not
to write terse letters to clients, but to maintain a brief style for in-house communication.

Life Force Insurance

To : All Employees

From : President, Life Force Insurance

Date : 03 July 3, 2020

Subject : Brief style of communication for in-house communication, not for clients

Few weeks ago an instruction was circulated to keep our letters or memos short and simple. However, a
significant number of clients have submitted complaints against our short and blunt communication.
Therefore, all employees are instructed to maintain brief style of communication for in-house
communication only. Communication with the clients will be remaining detailed and showing gratitude to
them.

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2. Again in the role of Conrad Underwood, write a letter of apology to a policy- holder who received
an unnecessarily blunt letter from one of your employees.

July 04, 2020

Mr. X
Karwanbazar, Tejgaon
Dhaka-1215, Bangladesh

Dear Mr. X,

We are greatly concerned about dissatisfaction for poor quality of communication. On behalf of Life
Force Insurance, please accept our sincere apologies for the careless communication you received from
one of our employees. We really feel regret for the inconvenience caused by this.

Your satisfaction is our greatest asset. I can ensure that you will not receive this type of communication in
the future.

We intensely value your reliability as a policyholder and expect that you continue to come to us for your
insurance needs. We are dedicated to provide you with the best service possible and hope to prove that
this was an isolated incident. Please let me know for any questions or concerns you may have. I would
love to solve your difficulties.

Yours in service,
Conrad Underwood
President of Life Force Insurance
c.underwood@lifeforce.com
(707) 322-7525

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3. In the role of a policyholder, write a letter of complaint to Life Force Insurance regarding the
blunt and even rude tone of recent letters you have received from the company.

Date: 04 July 4, 2020

Conrad Underwood
President
Life Force Insurance

Subject: Complaint Letter for Poor and Rude Communication

Dear Sir / Madam,

My name is Mr. X, one of your policyholders, policy number: xxxxxxx. I am writing to you regarding a
blunt and even a rude letter that I received from one of your employees.

The letter did not have any complete sentence, moreover, the language was used in the letter like an order
to me. I have never received such kind of letter from any other organization. I have been a long time
customer in your company and was most upset by this events.
I hope that this letter explains my feelings and disappointment with what has occurred, I would not like
this to happen to me or any other customer and hope that corrective measures would be taken swiftly.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully
Mr. X
Karwanbazar, Tejgaon
Dhaka-1215, Bangladesh
Email; xxx@gmail.com
Mobile: 01xxxxxxxxx

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 Individual Assignments of ID 3-19-43-057

July 13, 2020

All the employees of Life Force Insurance

Subject: On the matter of writing memos

In response of a complain letter that has been portrayed as a bad behavioral issue happen with
the customer so I am asking to all my employees to be more polite and humble while you are
writing a letter regarding customer.

Furthermore this is highly unacceptable that we are facing lot of issues regarding the behavioral
concern .The employees don’t deliveries up to the mark for that reason it can be a possible threat
to our company if we do so .We should change the behavioral good manner while writing to our
customers as the letters are being written to harshly. Now, they are claiming their money from us
as they have lost someone very much dear to them. So while writing letters to them write to them
with empathy. The letters can be start with good greetings, should give them hope about the
insurance claim or to asking regular manner question as if customer don’t get hurt.

Now the letters that should make each staff member aware that there is zero tolerance for any
type of rude behavior also not allowing this to happen again as I truly value my customer so I
look forward to serving you. With your continuous support it is my vision to offer you the best
experience with exceptional service. The time that is given to this prominent company is
valuable. So the letters written among the employees of this company should not take much time
to read as well as should concern about our goodwill as well.

Thanks & Regards,

Conrad Underwood, Company President

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July 12, 2020

Richard William

Subject: About the letter to claim (Apology Letter)

Dear Sir,

I have just heard about the fact of your query of your concern complaint which you have received from
the company Life Force Insurance. This is to inform you that we are very much dishearten about the
certain demise of your spouse, may God bless your spouse and wish to grand your spouse heaven. So, as
you know about the earlier letter this should be mentionable that some of our employees didn’t properly
understand the information instructed for them for that reason they portray a behavior that is so
unacceptable. So I am very much sorry about the letter you have to go through in this situation from our
company. I am very much dishearten and apologies behalf of my company furthermore I instructed my
employees well for their mistake. So, I will be send another official letter to your end.

So prey and hope that you will accept our concern and again sorry for your inconvenience.

Sincerely Yours,

Conrad Underwood

President Life Force Insurance

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July 14, 2020

Conrad Underwood

President

Life Force Insurance Ltd.

Lake Circus Kalabagan, Dhaka-1205

Ref: Complaint letter regarding blunt and even rude tone of recent letters

Dear Sir,
This is to inform you that with heavy heart that I am faced a rude behavioral experience regarding the
insurance claim issue. Moreover after my husbands dead everything freezes in my life so in this situation
such bad behavior is unapologetic. But as my husband is very loyal towards your company so its my
responsibility to inform you about this issue. Also I have been always treated as a valued customer and
was satisfied with your service. But in recent time I have received letters which I have attached along
with this letter which are very much disheartening and quite rude. I want to let you know that I am very
upset with your staff’s performance. This type of behavior is not expected from a renowned company
like you.

While replying to a customer should be more specified and humble with regards and i trust that this is
not the way Life Force Insurance Ltd. deals with their customers and you will mention my concern with
MR. HARUN OR RASHID and take necessary action as early as possible.

So, pray and hope that you will respond with a solution to prevent this incident and act accordingly not
only for all the customers but also for the companies goodwill. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks & Regards,

Raviara Gomes

Kalabagan, Dhaka

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 Group Assignment

Question 1: Convene a quality circle (a relatively small discussion and problem solving group)
to discuss the stylistic problems described in the case. Decide what to do about the problems.

July 14, 2020

1. Sanjid Ibrahim, Relationship Manager

2. Fahim Rahman, Insurance Claim Officer
3. ZarinTasnim, Insurance Counselor
4. Anika Ibrahim, Head Sales Manager
5. Irfan Ahmed, Head Risk Manager

Life Force Insurance Ltd

Uttara, Dhaka

Ref: Company’s recent problems and solution

Hello Everyone,

Recently we are getting a lot of complaints from our customer. They are complaining about the
writing style of us to them. The letters are being brief to the point of being blunt and harsh. I
know I have instructed you to keep the letters as short as possible but that’s only for our in house
communication. Regarding communication to our customers it’s crucially important to be polite
and understanding their situation.

We cannot become rude while communicating to our valuable customer. Their satisfaction is our
asset. As we know many of our customers go through very deep losses while claiming for their
insurance. We must keep our letters as considerable and polite as possible to prevent them to
become more disappointed.

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Bad letters reflect poorly on the company image. Such letters tar the company image more and
more each day .It can lead to loss of business. Also impolite emails felt lack of professionalism
and care. We must care about their feeling and respond according to their situation. Our
employees are failing to give superior customer services. Our company policy does not support
this type of unprofessional behavior. It can lead another paper blizzard to the company. In order
to prevent falling of company image more I would like to discuss following measures to improve
our customer service.

 Change the style: We have to take immediate action to change the style of letters to our
clients. I have already conveyed a memo to all of the employees regarding their style of
writing letters and instruct them to change that. The letters should be polite and
empathetic.

 Training: Staffs should be trained well on how to respond to clients. We will arrange a
seminar and a training session for the employees.

 New Employee Training: New employees will get full service procedure training right
after joining.

 Updating: We will update our customer service procedure day by day according to the
need of our clients.

 In House Communication: The in house communication system will be brief in order to

save time and prevent complexity.

 Emphasized letters: The letters to customers can be emphasized if the situation

demands.

 Conveying Condolences: Grieving letters mustn’t be blunt or brief. We should convey

our heartiest condolence to the clients for their losses.

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  Apology Letter: All the customers who had faced inconvenient situation because of our
blunt replies must be given apology letters and compensations if possible.

 Monitoring: The employees should be monitored occasionally in order to ensure the

quality of service by us.

 Punishment: If any employee fails to act according to our company policy of writing
letters to clients despite of training strict action will be taken against him/her.

 Sample Letters: Sample letters would be given to employees to assist them on how to
respond to the clients to make them satisfied.

 Following Seven Cs: The employees should follow seven Cs (Courtesy, Clarity,
Correctness, Completeness, Concreteness, Consideration and Conciseness) in order to
write appropriate responding letters to clients.

Courtesy: We can increase the effectiveness of your communications by being polite and
showing your audience that you respect them. Our messages should be friendly, professional,
considerate, respectful, open and honest.
To help ensure that we are courteous, we should always use some empathy and consider our
messages from the point of view of the client.

Consideration: Communicating with the target group (Consideration). In order to communicate

well, it is important to relate to the target group and be involved. By taking the audience into
account, the message can be geared towards them. Factors that play a role in this are for
example: professional knowledge, level of education, age and interests.

Conciseness: When communicating messages of this nature it’s important to stick to the point
and keep our messages short and simple. But not so short that it tends to become blunt or harsh
to customer.

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Finally customer satisfaction is our first priority. We should not only instruct but also make sure
that these steps are taken by the concerned authority. We cannot ignore that anyhow. Your
suggestions are encouraged. Please feel free to let me know your opinion.

Sincerely,

Conrad Underwood
President
Life Force Insurance Ltd.
c.underwood@lifeforce.com

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Question 2: Join with several other employees at Life Force Insurance to draw up several guide
letters that can be used by other company writers who are unsure what should and shouldn’t be
said to clients in correspondents.

A Sample letter informed about the Policy Encashment

July 13, 2020

Raviara Gomes
Kalabagan, Dhaka-1205

Dear Madam,

It is terrible to hear about your loss and I express my sincere sympathy to you and your family.
We are very much dishearten and sad about the fact to help you as much we could. We want to
serve you as your husband was our loyal client and it is our responsibility to help you. We have
the pleasure in informing you that Re: Policy No. H/O Sanction 1342/2020 matures for payment
on10thJuly, 2020. We have received documents to settle your claim to this policy swiftly:

 The policy document is authentic and accurate. The method of duly filled and witnessed
carefully.
 The mandate form account holder contacted with concern branch to credit the amount to
your savings account bearing number 0144-121-4568. The last premium receipt and
charge documents has attached.
 Any clause or deeds of contract affecting your concern title to the policy. Full
information about KYC documents, ie ID proof and address proof along with NID card
and photo has been attached.

Please return it to us duly executed, along with the policy, before the date of maturity, to
enable us to arrange for payment by a cheque on the Premier Bank Ltd, Gulshan Glass House
Branch. I offer you my thoughts, prayers and well-wishes during this dark time in your life.

Sincerely yours,

Conrad Underwood
President of Life Force Insurance
c.underwood@lifeforce.com

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 A sample letter notifying the maturity of a policy

July 14, 2020

Sara Jones

289 Oxford Avenue

Maine, WI. 09410

Policy No. 78430917/2010

Dear Madam,

We have the pleasure in informing you that the above noted policy matures for payment on 20 th
July, 2020. We need the following documents to settle your claim to this policy swiftly:

1. The policy document in original

2. The discharge form duly filled and witnessed
3. The mandate form containing your bank details for crediting the amount into
your Savings bank account.
4. The last premium receipt
5. Any deeds of assignment affecting your title to the policy
6. KYC documents, ie ID proof and address proof along with PAN card.

Please return it to us duly executed, along with the policy, before the date of maturity, to enable
us to arrange for payment by a cheque from Bangladesh Bank.

Yours faithfully

Conrad Underwood

President of Life Force Insurance

c.underwood@lifeforce.com

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 A Sample letter responding to loan application

13th July, 2020

Mr. Rafiq
Mirpur, Dhaka
Policy Number: 323 123 345

Dear Sir,

With reference to your letter of 12/06/2020 for loan, we have to inform you that the desired loan
of BDT 4,50,000/- is available under the above policy at Interest at 14% per annum. An absolute
assignment on the policy will be executed in favor of the corporation.

We enclose the following documents for completion by you.

(a) Form of application for loan

(b) Receipt of the loan and

(c) Declaration Slip regarding fresh assignment.

As soon as we receive the policy duly signed in our favor and duly completed documents, the
loan will be remitted to you by a cheque on City Bank Ltd. after deducting stamp duty.

Yours faithfully,

Rashidul Islam

Life Force Insurance Ltd

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 A Sample settlement letter for claimed insurance

13th June, 2020

Md. Jalil Khan

Uttara, Dhaka

Sub: Settlement letter for your claimed insurance

Dear Sir,

I have received and read the letter which you have sent me regarding the claim that you are
making regarding your health issues of June 3, 2020. We are very sorry to hear about your illness
and at the same time we would get a relief if we can help you in this situation. Hope you will
recover soon after the treatment.

I am happy to inform you that your claim has been examined and verified and we wish to settle
your claim according to the amount that you have stipulated.

We will be sending you the details of the meeting which we will have soon.

We wish you a good day and get well soon.

Sincerely,
Rashidul Islam
Life Force Insurance Ltd

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