There are many kinds of complaint letters. I like the funny ones the best, like Tracy’s. Usually a nut for Wild Wings Lunch Buffet’s wings, she was sorely saddened to get a plate of “micro wings” foisted upon her. And instead of celery and dressing – tater tots! Tracy dashed off an amusing complaint letter, and they actually investigated it and will be fixing the wing deficiency!

Tracy writes:

To Whom it may concern,

I am writing today to express disappointment with the “reduced” lunch buffet i experienced at the Charlotte Ayersly location today. As regular customer of your establishment, I enjoy your great selection of wings and beer and bring friends and family with me to your restaurant frequently. I also enjoy the wide selection of wings on the lunch buffet you normally offer. It usually becomes the highlight of my week when I visit.

Today, However, the buffet was well below the typical standard I have become accustom to. Instead of 8-12 different wings on the table and endless supplies of celery and dressing, I was greeted with only two trays, divided to serve only 4 varieties of wings. Gone too was the celery and dressing, replaced with “tater tots” of all things?!?! To add insult to injury, to my heart-broken gut, the wings were miniature “baby” wings compared to normal plumpers.. That had to be from hatchlings.. I’m certain you would have been making omelets with those chickens if they were only two days younger.

And for all of this.. the price is the same as it was before. I asked the waitress if there was something wrong with the buffet, some grievous error with a malfunctioning heat lamp.. alas no.. she told me that it was a cost cutting measure.. With a buffet that small of stature, it will probably end up being a customer cutting measure in the long run. It just doesn’t meet expectations and it was a real disappointment. I had plans to bring in clients from out of country in for your wing buffet after bragging about it to them, now I have to try to find an alternative to save face.. its all just disheartening.. sad.. yes, im sad over small chicken wings. .. to the point of Prozac..

Anyways, I realize that business is tough and the economy of offering all you can eat wings might be a drain.. but please, bring back the larger buffet.. Raise the price of it.. just don’t leave it so small, at that size, the value just isn’t there. Yes, I will still come in for dinner, and yes, my crazy 9 year old will still eat 8 Braveheart wings every visit and cry mace-laden tears with each one.. but I do enjoy the lunch buffet and would really like to see it continue in all of its gluttonous glory.. it’s the American way and by-god I’ll pay more for you to keep it around.

Thank you Much,

Tracy

Wild Wings replied:

Dear Tracy,

We are so glad that you took the time to email us about this. Fear not! We’ve figured out what happened and made corrections TODAY.

We received a similar email for one of our other stores, from a regular customer like yourself, last month. Since that time we’ve had all our stores go back to offering 6 flavors of wings on the wing bar. They have the option of offering tater tots and nuggets IN ADDITION to the regular 6 wing flavors, if they have a customer following that wants it. If the Ayrsley location has customers who really love those tots, you might continue to see those on the bar but you won’t continue to see a shortage of the wing flavors.

As for the pint-sized wings, we had to go out and get an emergency order of wings this past Saturday for fear of running out and all that was available to us was the small sized wings. We couldn’t offer them on our regular menu (because the price doesn’t match the size) so we put them out on the wing bar since it was all-you-can-eat. It was a mistake and highly unusual. Since your visit, those wings are gone and we’re back to our regular sized wings that you are used to.

We’ve also addressed the celery and blue cheese/ranch dressing. You should see that out on the wing bar today.

We hope that you’ll give us another chance now that all issues have been addressed and we’re back to offering the wing bar as you’d like to see it. And I’d like to put you in touch with our general manager of that store. I know he’d like to speak with you personally. You gave us some great feedback in the form of a very nice email. I can tell you have a great sense of humor and you’re a really big Wild Wing fan – if you weren’t, you surely would not have taken the time to let us know your thoughts. If it’s okay with you, would you mind sending me a contact number where you can be reached? I’d like to send that to the general manager and have him call you directly.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Heather Brownlee
Customer Relations
Wings Over America, Inc.

This is a great example of how the “Praise With Faint Damn” technique described in “Professional Complaint Letter Writer Shares His Secrets” can work.

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