Message Strategies: Refusing Routine Requests [LO-4]

As a customer service supervisor for a mobile phone company, you’re in charge of responding to customers’ requests for refunds. You’ve just received an email from a customer who unwittingly ran up a $550 bill for data charges after forgetting to disable his smartphone’s WiFi hotspot feature.

The customer says it wasn’t his fault because he didn’t know his roommates were using his phone to get free Internet access. However, you’ve dealt with this situation before and provided a notice to all customers to be careful about excess data charges resulting from the use of the hotspot capability. Draft a short buffer (one or two sentences) for your email reply, sympathizing with the customer’s plight but preparing him for the bad news (that company policy specifically prohibits refunds in such cases).