Businesses frequently use customer

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact3% picked this

   When one business increases its profits, its competitors often report a

   This seems to state a very hollow truth we already know about the world. Money is finite. Markets are finite. Within a stable market, as one business grows in market share, by definition some other businesses in that market have to shrink in market share. This has nothing to do with customer surveys, and we need a difference between businesses that use surveys / don't use surveys.

   3%
2. B

   Too Weak: some1% picked this

   Some businesses routinely use customer

   This says, "there is at least one business that routinely uses customer surveys". That is a really uninformative answer that has no impact on pretty much any conversation. This couldn't possibly explain the difference in declining profits between the group of businesses using surveys and those not. Answers that only mean "at least one case exists" (some, can, may, might, not all, not always, could, sometimes) are almost always wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox.

   1%
3. C

   Correct82% picked this

   Most businesses of the kind included in the study generally administer customer surveys only as a response

   Why this is right

   This provides a new difference between the two groups (survey users and survey non-users): Survey Users vs. Non-Users receiving complaints not receiving complaints from customers from customers Can this difference help to explain the difference in declining profits? Sure. It suggests that what's going on is this: Survey Users: 1. not yet using survey 2. their business sucks, leading them to have declining profits as well as complaining customers 3. they start using surveys to try to improve their situation 4. this recent study sees them as a "uses survey / declining profits" data point. Survey Non-Users: 1. not using survey 2. their businesses don't suck, so they aren't getting complaining customers and they don't have declining customers 3. they see no need to use customer surveys 4. this recent study sees them as a "doesn't use survey / non-declining profits" data point. To put it another way, the Paradox wanted us to think start using survey, then, declining profits (wha?!) This answer is selling it to us a different way the survey is only chosen by a business that is already failing (i.e. with complaining customers and declining profits) An analogous example: Men frequently use cologne to attract women at the bar. However, a recent study found that among a group of heterosexual single men who try to pick up women at bars, most of the men who wear cologne are frequently rejected by the ladies, while most of the men who don't wear cologne are not frequently rejected. The answer would be saying (C) Only desperate, undesirable men turn to cologne as a last hope of finding success with the opposite sex.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   82%
4. D

   Too Weak: do not always9% picked this

   Customers who complete surveys do not always respond accurately to all the questions

   This answer literally provides us with only this -- "there has been at least one case in which a customer who completed a survey didn't respond to 100% of the questions on the survey". That is too weak to move a feather. We don't really know or care what the other questions on the survey were, either. Clearly, these businesses indicated whether or not they use surveys and whether or not their profits are declining, or else they wouldn't be included in the correlations that are being cited to us.

   9%
5. E

   Too Weak: some5% picked this

   Some of the businesses included in the study did not analyze the results of the

   This merely says, "There was at least one business that didn't analyze the results of its customer surveys". But since this only tells us about one business, it doesn't have much hope of giving us a way to explain a difference that held broadly throughout all the data points in a study. In fact, some of the businesses with non-declining profits use surveys (according to these facts), so we don't even know if this answer choice is describing a survey business that had declining or non-declining profits.

   5%