Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S3 · Q11 Businesses frequently use customer

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Businesses frequently use customer surveys in an attempt to improve sales and increase profits.

Given that ...

Business frequently use customer surveys in an attempt to improve sales and increase profits.

How can it be that ...

In this study, most of the businesses using the surveys had declining profits whereas most of the businesses that didn't use surveys did not have declining profits.

Evaluate

The paradox is that most of the businesses using this tool that's supposed to help a business improve profits have declining profits.

It's not some widespread economic downturn, because businesses not using this tool do not have declining profits.

Technically, if we're attuned to Relative vs. Absolute language, there isn't really a paradox here. The customer survey is supposed to improve profits. Are the businesses who are using the survey seeing improved profits?

Maybe! We don't know. We know they have declining profits, but maybe that was already the case before they started using the customer surveys.

If their profits were previously declining by 20% month over month, but once they started using the survey the profits are only declining by 5% month over month, then the survey is improving profits from what they would otherwise be without the survey.

Goal

Most correct answers on Paradox questions Explain a Difference, Using a Difference.

The difference we're trying to explain is declining profits vs. non-declining profits among two groups.

We already know one difference (using customer surveys vs. not using customer surveys), but it's unlikely that that difference explains declining vs. non-declining profits (because that difference is supposed to improve profits).

There's probably some other difference between the businesses using the surveys and those who aren't that explains why the former has declining profits whereas the latter does not.

11.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the profits of businesses that did not use customer surveys did not decline while the profits of those that used surveys did decline?

When one business increases its
No Impact
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% picked this
Some businesses routinely use customer
Too Weak: some
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.
0% picked this
Correct
Most businesses of the kind
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% picked this
Customers who complete surveys do
Too Weak: do not always
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% picked this
Some of the businesses included
Too Weak: some
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% picked this

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