6

I recently contacted a restaurant where I had a bad experience, and a manager got back in contact with me. At the end of the email, they said:

I would very much appreciate the opportunity to speak with you personally to address all of your concerns and regain your confidence in our ability to provide you with a great dining experience. Please feel free to contact me directly at (555)123-4567 or by email at [email protected]

I'm not really comfortable making phone calls, so I am sending an email response. But it just feels much less like "speaking with me directly" than a phone call. How can I politely inform the person that if they still want to talk, they can call me instead?

Improve this question
10
  • 2
    Why is this necessary?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 0:31
  • 3
    Why do they need to call you? I don't understand why you can't call them.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 0:46
  • 3
    @aaaaaa But that doesn't explain why they're comfortable receiving one. I can't really figure how to answer this question without knowing what's wrong with dialing rintaun dialing the phone themself.
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 1:03
  • 5
    I'm not really sure why the reason I don't want to make a phone call matters, but I suppose if I knew everything about this stuff, I wouldn't be asking a question. :) In short, making phone calls causes me anxiety. Receiving phone calls does not. I can appreciate that you might not understand that, but that's the reality.
    – rintaun
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 1:54
  • 4
    @rintaun: Maybe you should look for answers how you get over your anxiety. That seems to be the real issue here.
    – user8838
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 3:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
14

Just send an email that says something like:

Hi,
I look forward to discussing this with you. I am available Thursday between 2 and 4pm. Just give me a call, my phone number is (xxx)xxx-xxxx.

[your name here]

This does several things.

  • It tells them that you are currently busy but approachable and that you actually want to have a dialog, as opposed to a "yell at them" session. After all, if you just wanted to complain you could do that safely from the comfort of an email without fear of interruption.
  • By giving a 2 hour window, it says that you value their time as well. Hopefully this will help you come across as more reasonable because you aren't demanding that they drop whatever hot plate they have at that moment to speak to you. I'm sure any restaurant manager would appreciate this and could easily find 10 minutes over the course of 2 hours to contact you.
  • Finally, it does exactly what you want which is put the ball into their court to be the one that actually dials the phone.
Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    Very good answer. I'll propose a variant: "I am available Thursday between 2 and 4pm. Just give me a call at your convenience that afternoon. If that afternoon doesn't work for your schedule, please let me know some other times that would work for you, or feel free to try my number at a random time. My phone number is (xxx) xxx-xxxx."
    – aparente001
    Commented Mar 4, 2018 at 17:58
  • 1
    @aparente001: I thought about adding something like that but the problem is that it invites another email from the restaurant manager proposing a different set of times and, potentially, for the manager to place the burden of dialing the phone back on the OP which is what we are trying to avoid.
    – NotMe
    Commented Mar 5, 2018 at 2:52

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.