English At Work: Mr Lime's grapefruit

Narrator: Ah hello! Welcome back to Tip Top Trading – the UK's leading wholesaler of imitation fruit. Today you're joining us in the middle of the action! Anna is with an important client Mr Lime, from Citrus Ventures. He's angry and she'll have to calm him down. She could cope brilliantly here or this could be a horrible mess!

Anna: Well Mr Lime, how can I help you?

Mr Lime: On Monday I was meant to receive 8,000 plastic grapefruit from Tip Top Trading.

Anna: Yes.

Mr Lime: The delivery was made on Tuesday.

Anna: Oh dear.

Mr Lime: And instead of 8,000 plastic grapefruit, I got 800,000 plastic pineapples!

Narrator: Right Anna, this is serious. You're going to have to apologise and show that you really mean it. Say: I'm really sorry to hear that.

Anna: I'm really sorry to hear that, Mr Lime.

Mr Lime: What on earth am I going to do with 800,000 plastic pineapples?

Narrator: Show Mr Lime that you understand the problem. These are phrases you can use:
That's totally unacceptable. That must have been very inconvenient for you. And then promise to fix the problem. Say:
You have my word that we will sort this out. We can do something to make up for the inconvenience. It won't happen again.

Mr Lime: 800,000 plastic pineapples!

Anna: That's totally unacceptable.

Mr Lime: I didn't even have anywhere to put them - and pineapples are so much bigger than grapefruit!