#3 : Critique of the Business Letter

Below is a letter I received from TIME magazine informing me that their company practises an automatic renewal program for subscribers. They will automatically renew my subscription without my consent and I have to unsubscribe if I do not want to continue.

MS LI-YUN SOH
12 JALAN PAPAYA
SINGAPORE 123456

Dear Ms. Soh,

Your Customer Number: 12345678

Your subscription renewal time is approaching and I want to take a moment to thank you for continuing your subscription to TIME Magazine.

This letter is your official Savings Report. It verifies unconditionally the low rates you are entitled to receive under the TIME Automatic Renewal Plan. To be specific:

1) This year you will enjoy a full 64% savings off the cover price of TIME. This rate is even less than the already low rate for a regular one year renewal.

2)Your current TIME subscription expires on 12/05/09. There’s no need to do anything now. We will extend your subscription automatically and continue to send you TIME so you don’t miss a single issue.

3) We will debit your VISA card for $153.90 6-8 weeks before your expiry to keep TIME coming for another year without interruption.

4) You will receive a thank you gift once your new subscription starts as a small token of our appreciation.

Of course, you may cancel at any time and receive a full refund for all unmailed issues.

For queries or assistance, please contact our Customer Services Representative at TEL: 6823 2121 or email us at enquiries@timeasia.com.

Once again, thank you for enrolling into TIME Automatic Renewal Plan and for your loyalty to TIME Magazine.

Sincerely,

SIGNATURE

Regina Ng
Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing and Operations

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This letter is more of a persuasive letter and it’s trying to persuade me to continue subscribing time magazine by showing me their efficient services.

This is a relatively good persuasive letter as Regina Ng expressed her enthusiasm and sincerity in persuading me to continue subscription. She also demonstrated subscribers’ concern about renewal and provided excellent services by doing an automatic renewal. This is also their selling point. She mentioned my benefits such as I will receive the lowest subscription fee and a gift. She also included due dates and contacts if I have queries. However, operation hours of the customer services were not mentioned.

In terms of the 7Cs in writing, Regina uses block format and formal language which is needed in a business letter. The letter is also concise and clear as it was written in a very short and precise form. Parallel structure was used and sentences were easy to understand even for those who are in a rush. However, information such as how much subscribers can save up and specific information such as if you want to cancel what should you do were not mentioned in the letter. Hence, this letter is more beneficial to customers who want to renew and not to customers who wish to terminate the subscriptions. The letter could be written in paragraphs to be even more formal and the language used could be more polite such as saying, we are pleased to inform …., and please be reminded that your subscription expires on 12/05/09 instead.