Summary
Use AI to re-write an emotional complaint letter into a professional formal complaint, removing biased language and increasing the chance of a positive reception/outcome
Summary
When something goes wrong with a product, and there’s no-one to complain to – but you have colleagues, or a mailing list, or a network of peers that might be able to help – what do you do? Send a Tweet, Post to Facebook, or Write an Email in anger and … as they say: you’ll “regret it at leisure”. I want the benefits (leverage my network to find a solution) without the pain (biting my tongue over the unjustice) and without the reputational harm (being seen as a ‘complainer’).
Background
- I bought a high-priced product that worked great, lasted a few years, before failing. It’s outside the manufacturers warranty, and I got a decent amount of usage for the price
- Trying to buy a replacement I found that manufacturers now only sell cynically-marketed low-quality alternatives (think of the AI hype, and all the companies now putting “AI” in everything that has no need for it – and then jacking-up the price, and ramping-down the quality)
- I’m angry. Annoyed. Dismayed at the impact of late-stage capitalism :). … etc. Fine, but: that makes it hard to write a balanced, calm, request.
- I know several thousand people who either have had the same issue recently or are likely to do so in the next 12 months; how do I get their help without annoying them with a RANT RANT RAGE posting?
Approach
- Write “how I really feel” about the whole thing.
- Include one or more bullet point lists of the facts
- Ask ChatGPT to re-write it to be professional and even-handed
- Instruct ChatGPT to avoid being a pushover and allowing people to reply “just buy the crappy AI product that you don’t want and quit whining”
Prompt I used:
Imainge you are in a professional office manager and you want to rewrite this email to ask for advice on [my problem], to come acros professsionally, but avoiding naive responses telling you to '[unhelpful snarky response I can expect]'(I left in the typos – they don’t matter, ChatGPT won’t care).