Finding whoever has the power to decide
Writing to the right organisation is not enough: you still have to reach the department that really has the power to reply. It is the commonest mistake, and the one that costs the most time.
The principle
The department that decides, not the first counter you reach
A switchboard, a reception desk or a general address never decides anything: they pass things on, sometimes quickly, sometimes not. A letter that gets an answer aims at the department that actually made the decision you are challenging, that is handling the case, or whose job is to deal with that kind of request.
Writing to the right organisation but the wrong department inside it has the same effect as a wrong address: the letter waits for an internal transfer that takes weeks, when it happens at all. Nobody replies badly; it is simply that nobody has been given the job of replying.
Writing to the right organisation but the wrong department amounts to knocking on the wrong door.
When the name is missing
Looking before writing
The right recipient is not always written down anywhere obvious. It can almost always be found in a few minutes, by following an order rather than guessing.
01
Read the last letter you received again
The name of the department is often in the letterhead or near the signature, even when the letter looks generic. It is the most reliable lead, because it comes from the organisation itself.
02
Look for the exact mention of your problem
A contract, a set of general terms or an online account often names the department responsible for a precise kind of request: complaints, cancellations, disputes. That precise name is worth more than a generic department.
03
Look at the back of an invoice or a statement
A correspondence address, distinct from the commercial address printed at the top, is often there in small type.
04
Open the online account if there is one
The department concerned and its correspondence address are sometimes given there, even when nothing of the kind appears on the public site.
05
Telephone for a name, not to settle the matter
A call is for getting the exact name of a department or a role, never for dealing with the request by voice: with nothing in writing, none of what is said on the telephone can be proved afterwards.
Name a role, not a person
When you know a person's name, because they signed an earlier letter for instance, it is still worth writing it. But it goes out of date fast: somebody changes job, leaves the department, goes on leave, and the letter addressed to their name alone waits for their return instead of being opened by whoever took over.
The safest wording names the role first, and the person as a supplement if you know it: “Complaints department, for the attention of Mrs So-and-so” rather than “Mrs So-and-so” alone. A letter addressed to a role stays readable by whoever holds it on the day it arrives.
When neither a name nor a precise role can be found, the name of the department you spotted while looking is always preferable to a form of words that designates nobody.
The reference
What a file reference changes
A department handling several hundred letters does not know a case by the name of the person writing: it finds it by a number. A reference quoted in the subject line, whether customer, contract, file or claim, sends the letter straight to the existing file instead of making whoever reads it work everything out from the beginning.
That reference is in the letterhead of a letter you have already received, on an invoice or a statement, in the online account, or on an earlier acknowledgement of receipt. When none has been assigned yet, whatever else makes the file findable is enough: the customer or contract number, the date of an earlier exchange, the exact name it was opened under.
A reference is never invented. An inaccurate reference loses a letter as surely as a wrong address: better to quote none at all than to quote an approximate one.
Writing to somebody higher up: useful at one point, premature at another
The department handling the case remains the right recipient as long as it has not had the chance to reply. Going up a level, to a management, a manager or a department dedicated to unresolved complaints, makes sense once a first letter has gone unanswered beyond the deadline you set, or has had a reply that brings nothing new.
Writing too high too early has the opposite effect to the one you want. A management or a general department rarely takes cases directly: it almost always passes them to the department that should have replied in the first place. The letter then travels the route it could have taken directly, with the delay of that detour on top.
Escalating before you have given the department concerned time to reply does not save time: more often than not it loses time, once the case has come back down.
When the first letter really was sent, dated and left without a useful reply beyond the deadline you set, the escalation says so explicitly: the date of the first letter, the original request, the absence of a reply or its inadequacy. It does not start the demonstration again from the beginning.
When no postal address is published
Some organisations show only an online form, a messaging channel or a phone number, with no visible correspondence address. An address almost always exists all the same: the legal notice, the general terms or a public register the organisation is entered in usually publish a registered or correspondence address, even when the public site shows none.
If truly nothing can be found, the available channel, whether a form, a message or an online account, is still usable: what matters then is keeping proof that you sent it and, if possible, a confirmation that it was received. The way of sending changes, not the content of the letter nor the need for proof.
An address is no more to be invented than a file reference. Whatever stays verifiable, such as a dated screenshot of a search that found nothing, is worth more than an address put together on a guess.
The public registers where you can look for a registered address differ from country to country.
- See the country modules the registers and legal grounds checked, country by country
Once the recipient is found, two neighbouring moves.
- The full method, the seven moves finding the recipient is only the first of the seven
- Sending it and keeping the proof what each way of sending is worth, once you have the address