#3 Business letter review

Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you very much for your support to XXXX.com.

With reference to your inquiry dated Oct 24, 2008, we would like to inform you that according to the ordering record of your order 5186818, a refund in the amount of US$14.99 in terms of XXX Credit is under process for your next or future shopping at XXXX.com. Usually, the refund process will be completed in 1 – 2 business days. Once the refund process is completed, we will immediately notify you by sending you the respective refund confirmation.

We would like to have your kind understanding that our official settlement currency is in US Dollar and therefore, if you would like to have a refund via your credit card account, we will only be able to arrange such a refund in US Dollar too. Under such a situation, loss arising from exchange rate difference, for which we are not responsible, is possible. In order to avoid such a possible loss, we usually make XXX Credit as a defaulted refund media so that customers will be able to have a "real full refund". Of course, if this possible loss is not your concern, we are glad to arrange refund through your credit card account. Please kindly confirm if you would like to have the refund through your credit card account so that we can arrange for you accordingly. However, we would like to have your kind attention that the processing time for credit card will be longer than 1 – 2 business days as we have to arrange such refund with your credit card issuing bank via our payment gateway. Please do not reply to this email directly. Should you have any further inquiry, please kindly refer to our Customer Support Section at
http://www.XXXX.com/global/0-0-0-0-en/question-feedback.html.
Best regards,
Daniel Keung
Customer Service Department
XXXX.com

This is an email I received from an online shopping website replying to my enquiry (on whether they can refund directly to my credit card account instead of refund me XXX Credit which can only be used for further purchase from their website).

The letter seems to be courteous, as expressions such as “Dear Valued Customer” or “We would like to seek your kind understanding that…” have been used. But I feel it would have been more courteous if this customer service officer had addressed my name instead of “Dear Valued Customer”. Since I had been asked to fill in my full name when writing to them, I would expect all the other customer service officers to be able to address me by my name in their reply.

This letter meets the criteria of correctness, as it replied to my enquiry directly. In addition, this customer service officer also stated clearly which enquiries that he is replying to, (With reference to your inquiry dated Oct 24, 2008) which makes the reply professional and sharp. Furthermore, I think the reply contains concreteness and clarity with all the reasonable detailed explanation given for why they prefer to refund in term of XXX credit.

With the brief mentioning of the current situation at the beginning of the letter with follow up actions and the further explanation of possible delay that may occur if direct refund is chosen, I feel that coherence and completeness are fulfilled.

Since there is no redundant information in the body of the letter, the concise criteria is also met. But I think it would be clearer if the exquisite of further action can be written as the paragraph following the comparison of the two ways of refund.