By Laura Northrup From Consumerist

A few weeks ago, a passenger experienced some kind of problem with (MAJOR U.S. AIRLINE). She sent a complaint letter about this (SPECIFIC EVENT) and received a printed letter back. This letter made it clear that the person who sent the letter had forgotten to use (CUSTOMER RELATIONS MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE) to fill in the blanks, resulting in a Mad Libs apology of sorts. Naturally, the recipient posted it to (POPULAR SOCIAL MEDIA SITE).

The letter-writer got partway there with their form-lettering, managing to fill in the customer’s name. In the salutation. The sender of the letter (in name, anyway) also included his signature, which the Reddit submitter thoughtfully redacted.

In case you’re on a mobile device or using a screen reader, here’s the full text of the letter:

Dear Mrs. [Redacted],

Thank you for letting us know about your recent experience with United Airlines. I apologize if our service did not meet your expectations, and appreciate you taking time to share your concerns.

Our goal is to provide a consistently reliable product and an exemplary level of customer service. Based on the events you describe, we did not meet this goal. Your comments regarding (SPECIFIC EVENT) will be used for coaching and training our employees.

To encourage you to fly with us again and as a tangible means of acknowledging your disappointment, enclosed is (SPECIFIC ITEM).

(CUSTOMER NAME), I ask that you allow us another opportunity to serve you, as we consider it our privilege to have you aboard.

Yes, there’s nothing that makes a customer feel valued and respected as a person quite like being referred to as (CUSTOMER NAME). A United spokesperson contacted by the Daily Caller said that he couldn’t confirm whether the letter was authentic, but that the company would like to straighten things out if they knew who the customer was.

We can’t exactly fault a company for using form letters, though. Even we use canned responses when reading our voluminous tipline, and make occasional mistakes with copy and paste. For example, here’s what a reader gets when they copy us on their e-mail to a company:

No one pretends that customer service worker bees are sitting in an office somewhere, typing out fresh and heartfelt responses for every lost suitcase and oversold flight. It’s better when a company at least pretends to give a crap, though, isn’t it?

For more on this story go to: http://consumerist.com/2014/07/31/united-airlines-forgets-to-finish-letter-about-specific-problem/

IMAGE: United Airlines logo