To improve customer relations several big retailers have recently

Question

To improve customer relations, several big retailers have recently launched “smile initiatives,” requiring their employees to smile whenever they have contact with customers. These retailers generally have low employee morale, which is why they have to enforce smiling. However, studies show that customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles and that fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers. So the smile initiatives are unlikely to achieve their goal.

The argument relies on which of the following as an assumption?

(A) The smile initiatives have achieved nearly complete success in getting employees to smile while they are around customers.

(B) Customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have.

(C) The feelings that employees generate in retail customers are a principal determinant of the amount of money customers will spend at a retailer.

(D) At the retailers who have launched the smile initiatives, none of the employees gave genuine smiles to customers before the initiatives were launched.

(E) Customers rarely, if ever, have a negative reaction to a genuine smile from a retail employee.

ID: 500280
CR11050.02

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Plan: Enforce smile initiative.
Target: Improve customer relations
Employees have low morale so smiling has to be enforced.
Customers can tell fake smiles which promote negative feelings.

Conclusion: The plan will not achieve target.

We are looking for an assumption on which our conclusion depends. We are saying that customer relations will not improve because fake smiles promote negative emotions (instead of the presumably positive emotions induced by genuine smiles).
What if the negative emotions induced by fake smiles and better than the negative emotions induced by frowns? 
Consider this: Since the employees have low morale, what if they usually carry frowns around? Now, because of the initiative, they have to fake smile at customers. Fake smiles may also trigger negative emotions but far less negative than frowns. So the customer relations will improve (though they may not become excellent). Hence the target could still be achieved. To say that the plan will not achieve its target, we are assuming that customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have.

Hence (B) is correct.

A) The smile initiatives have achieved nearly complete success in getting employees to smile while they are around customers.

Irrelevant. We are saying that the plan will fail. Had the conclusion been that the plan will succeed, this might have been relevant. Even then, we are looking for improvement so even if some percentage of employees smile, we could have attained improvement.

C) The feelings that employees generate in retail customers are a principal determinant of the amount of money customers will spend at a retailer.

"Amount of money spent" is not a part of the target.

D) At the retailers who have launched the smile initiatives, none of the employees gave genuine smiles to customers before the initiatives were launched.

If some employees gave genuine smiles before, they are not being forced to smile. So they will continue to give genuine smiles. Doesn't change anything.

E) Customers rarely, if ever, have a negative reaction to a genuine smile from a retail employee.

Customers' reaction to genuine smiles is irrelevant.

Answer (B)

scarletgirl · Answer

Let's first break the argument down:

Goal: To improve customer relations
Plan: Smile initiatives
Premise: Low employee morale, hence enforce smiling
Conclusion: Fake smile and genuine smiles are differentiable + fake smiles prompt negative feelings => goal will not be achieved

- Describes something that is relevant AFTER the smile initiative has been launched. This option has a "I told you so" tone. Also what kind of smiling? Did they increase the employees' wages to boost their morale and prompt genuine smiling? Or was it fake? The argument could sway either way, and even weakens the argument if it's a genuine smile.

-  Correct! If the low morale employees are already showing facial expressions (such as grumpiness!) that put customers off, the plan assumes that fake smiles will be on the same level of the "negative vibe exhibition" scale, and will bring on no change.

If we negate this, we get "Customers' feelings about fake smiles are  better  than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have." This means that fake smiles are doing better on the negative vibe scale than other facial expressions, which means customers will feel less negatively now, and the plan will  even somewhat  work. The argument falls apart.

Do we care about money? NO. We only care about improving customer relations. irrelevant

Do we care what was happening before the plan launched? That means nothing to us. Another red flag that stood out to me was the word "none". Unless there are extremes in the argument, extreme answers aren't cool.

Irrelevant. We are looking for stuff around fake smiles.

Takeaway: Look for gaps in logic. Answer B was the only choice that connects the premises logically. Since the argument is comparing fake smiles(Emotion A) with genuine smiles(Emotion B), the correct answer should compare two similar things(Emotion A and Emotion C) to fill the gap.

Acme · Answer

Question type :Assumption

Conclusion: Customer relationship will not improve by "smile initiatives"
Premise : 
1.customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles and that fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers
2.Employees have low morale

Gap or assumption : These low morale employees will have fake smiles or other expression whenever they have contact with customers.

A) The smile initiatives have achieved nearly complete success in getting employees to smile while they are around customers. -- This is not a strong assumption option and negating this option does not affect the conclusion

B) Customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have. -- Correct as even other expressions will not improve the customer relationship

C) The feelings that employees generate in retail customers are a principal determinant of the amount of money customers will spend at a retailer. -- Incorrect as this option talks about money spent that is not in scope

D) At the retailers who have launched the smile initiatives, none of the employees gave genuine smiles to customers before the initiatives were launched. -- we are not worried about the situation before the launching of this initiative

E) Customers rarely, if ever, have a negative reaction to a genuine smile from a retail employee. -- This is irrelevant

itspC · Answer

Conclusion: Goal(to improve customer relations) will fail TARGET: find the assumption of the argument Pre thinking: There's no improvement in the situation or situation may even worsen by... assumption......? A)This is opposite of the conclusion B)If Smile face=low morale faces>>> plan fails Ok. The negation of this is damaging conclusion. Lets keep this C)The amount of money isn't discussed Cust. relations. is our topic D)So what now are they Genuine? Maybe a few.. or maybe none or even all! different outcomes. Not bridging the gap between conclusion and premise though. E)So what? But now are the smiles genuine? No clue. Doesn't link the conclusion and premise Don't correct my grammar it's not SC

.n I m trying to be concise.

Hope this helps.

NiftyNiffler · Answer

To improve customer relations, several big retailers have recently launched “smile initiatives,” requiring their employees to smile whenever they have contact with customers. These retailers generally have low employee morale, which is why they have to enforce smiling. However, studies show that customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles and that fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers.  So the smile initiatives are unlikely to achieve their goal.

The argument relies on which of the following as an assumption?

A) The smile initiatives have achieved nearly complete success in getting employees to smile while they are around customers.  -- This is not an assumption, rather repackaging a part of the premise.

B) Customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have.  -- CORRECT, this says that employees with low morale might be able to fake smiles as mandated by the initiative but the customers can see right through them and are not convinced. Thus, it causes damage to the success of smile initiative.

C) The feelings that employees generate in retail customers are a principal determinant of the amount of money customers will spend at a retailer.  -- We don't know the relative importance of employee feelings to other contributing factors

D) At the retailers who have launched the smile initiatives, none of the employees gave genuine smiles to customers before the initiatives were launched.  -- What happened before the initiative was launches is not at discussion here

E) Customers rarely, if ever, have a negative reaction to a genuine smile from a retail employee.  -- We can't speak for all customers. The passage talks about customers' reaction to fake smiles, not to genuine smiles.
 
So, it is  B

ngochuyen1904 · Answer

Premise:    
Goal: Improve customer relation 
Plan: Requiring low employee morale smile (this is fake smile)
Other information: Customers could tell fake smiles from genuine smile

Conclusion:     
“Smile initiatives” are unlikely to achieve their goal

Pre-think:     
For low morale employees:
 Before the initiative they show:
 • Only low-morale facial expressions (1) Created  -10  points of customers’ satisfaction
 After the initiative they show:
 • Low-morale facial expressions (1) Created  -6  points of customers’ satisfaction
 • Fake smiles (2) Created  -10  points of customers’ satisfaction
     Total :    Created  -8  points of customers’ satisfaction
Look at the table above, if customers' feelings about fake smiles are better than their feelings about the other facial expressions clearly the initiative helped increases 2 points of customers’ satisfaction
This weakens our conclusion

Example above is exactly what  option B  is telling us

natheodore · Answer

Hey guys just to check , why can't I argue A along this line?

If smile initiative is a complete success >> this means that employees will generally be smiling towards customers. And since customers can tell a fake smile from a genuine one, it sets in a negative feeling. Thus, with the complete success of generating fake smiles, it fully concludes the prompt that such initiatives are unlikely to achieve their goal.

DmitryFarber · Answer

natheodore

Two issues with that:

1) An assumption question is different from a strengthen question. We need to find something that is NECESSARY for the argument, not just something that is helpful. Even if it would be helpful to know that the success of these initiatives in producing smiles is "nearly complete," we don't NEED to know that in order to conclude that they won't achieve their goal. On the contrary, if we knew that few or no employees actually smiled, this would also show that the plan didn't reach its goal, since it would have had no visible effect at all!

2) Even if this were meant to be a strengthen, it wouldn't help much, since the issue is not really about how widespread the effect is. Rather, the author is saying that the initiative won't have the effect its promoters think it will. Whether 5% or 100% of the employees are smiling, the issue remains the same: will making them smile make things better or not? Answer choice A gives us no new information on this front. We're still left to wonder if fake smiles are better than the alternative.

Pankaj0901 · Answer

While I understood why B is correct, I have a doubt.

B) Customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have.

For the conclusion to hold true, customers' feelings about fake smiles must not be better than their feelings about other facial expressions of the employees with low morale. Hence, answer B is correct. 
Now, consider negation: Customers feel better about fake smiles than they feel about other facial expressions. BUT, customers would be able to notice the fake smile anyway and would have a negative impact ultimately (as stated in the premise). Thus, the conclusion that fake smile is unlikely to achieve goal still holds true, since customers would have negative impact (even though the feeling from fake smile is better than the feeling from other expressions on employees' face). Why are we ignoring the important premise that states "However, studies show that customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles and that fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers."

Can someone please correct me what I am missing? 
 AndrewN  - Request you to please guide me.

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  Pankaj0901 . There is a saying in English that pertains to a dilemma:  choose the lesser of two evils . This maxim is known as the  Lesser of Two Evils Principle . Answer choice (B) is not ignoring the fact that  fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers . Rather, we can appreciate that not all negative feelings are the same in either type or magnitude. I imagine most people would react differently to misplacing something, maybe even losing an item, and having to let go of a beloved family member. Both experiences may engender negative feelings, but few people would call those feelings the same.

In the question at hand, imagine a 1-3 scale of negative feelings that a customer might experience as a result of seeing a certain facial expression:

1 - fake smile → slight discomfort (customer may not like the gesture but understand it through context)
2 - pout → discomfort (customer may wonder if the worker is having a bad day and seek a different worker)
3 - furrowed brow, frown → great discomfort (customer may wonder why the worker is angry and seek a different worker or want to leave)

Now, you can appreciate that if the store policy gets point-of-contact interactions from a 2 or 3 to a 1, such a change could make a difference to customers, and the lesser of two evils principle would be at work.

Perhaps the answer choice makes more sense now. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

zoezhuyan · Answer

dear  avigutman ,  AndrewN , MartyTargetTestPrep ,

will you experts will have pre-think on before diving into the options? if not, what will you do ?

as for this assumption question, i did not have any pre-think, then I went to the options, at the end, I picked up D.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

Hello. Here is how I would move through this question, including what I would pre-think.

First I read the question: "The argument relies on which of the following as an assumption?"

So I know I'm going to deconstruct an argument and find the assumptions (things that MUST be true for the argument to be true).

Then I deconstruct the argument:

To improve customer relations, several big retailers have recently launched “smile initiatives,” requiring their employees to smile whenever they have contact with customers. These retailers generally have low employee morale, which is why they have to enforce smiling. However, studies show that customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles and that fake smiles prompt negative feelings in customers. So the smile initiatives are unlikely to achieve their goal.

So the ultimate conclusion is that "The smile initiatives are unlikely to achieve their goal" meaning "The smile initiatives will not improve customer relations."

The premise is that the employees have low morale, and customers can tell fake smiles from genuine smiles, and fake smiles give people negative feelings.

So I like to think of ways the conclusion could be FALSE even though the premises TRUE. Meaning, maybe the smile initiatives WILL improve customer relations, even though employees have low morale and fake smiles would be bad.

So I have a few thoughts on that front:

--would the smiles be fake? I know the employees have low morale, but maybe they can still smile genuinely. If so, this argument falls apart.
--If the smiles are fake, and cause negative feelings in customers, could the customers... feel bad for the employees and, somehow, that makes customer relations better? (I don't feel great about this one, honestly, but basically, I see that the argument needs to 'fuse' "negative feelings about fake smiles" and "not improved customer relations." If the negative feelings, somehow, DID improve customer relations, the argument falls apart).

So some assumptions are that: Low morale employees would be smiling fakely, and, negative emotions from fake smiles could not somehow improve customer relations.

So I go to the answers with these pre-thoughts:

A) The smile initiatives have achieved nearly complete success in getting employees to smile while they are around customers.

So this means employees are complying by smiling, but does not deal with the questions I have: are the smiles genuine, and/or, are they somehow improving relations?

B) Customers' feelings about fake smiles are no better than their feelings about the other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have.

So this one seemed wrong to me at first, but it did seem related to my second assumption, in that it deals directly with how customers feel about fake smiles. So I stuck with it for a moment.

When I negate this answer, (Customers' feelings about fake smiles ARE better than their feelings about other facial expressions employees with low morale are likely to have), I see that this must be correct, and for the basic reasons in my pre-thinking. Fake smiles, it turns out, might be an improvement over grumpy faces. Even if fake smiles cause negative feelings, maybe they cause *LESS* negative feelings than grumpy faces. LESS negative feelings... is improvement! (It might not be as much improvement as the people who force their employees to smile are *hoping* for, but it IS improvement).

C) The feelings that employees generate in retail customers are a principal determinant of the amount of money customers will spend at a retailer.

Money spent is irrelevant to the conclusion about not-improving customer relations.

D) At the retailers who have launched the smile initiatives, none of the employees gave genuine smiles to customers before the initiatives were launched.

Negate the answer. If SOME employees gave genuine smiles before the initiatives were launched, the argument does not fall apart.

This answer seems to justify *why* the bosses came up with the idea of a 'smile initiative,' but it is not required for the author's conclusion: that the initiative will not improve customer relations.

E) Customers rarely, if ever, have a negative reaction to a genuine smile from a retail employee.

Not relevant. Again, might explain why the bosses are doing this initiative (in the hopes their employees can give genuine smiles), but it is not required for the conclusion: that this initiative will not improve customer support.

zoezhuyan · Answer

dear  ReedArnoldMPREP 
this is fresh for me. I am curious why you think the ways the conclusion could be FALSE?
does this approach apply other types of CR questions, such as weaken, strengthen, even evaluate questions ? how can I know I can apply this way to CR questions?

looking forward your help.

have a nice day.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

Yes, this question applies to all "Assumption Family" questions (find the assumption, strengthen, weaken, evaluate, and--I argue--Explain the Discrepancy questions, for which you are told explicitly the conclusion was wrong even though the premises are true). The question type it would not apply to is "Inference" AKA "Draw a conclusion" questions.

Arguments on the GMAT hinge on 'assumptions.' Assumptions have two key features:

1). They are not stated explicitly in the passage

2). They MUST be true for the argument to hold (and if they are FALSE, the argument COLLAPSES).

For these reasons, the most useful question you can ask about an argument is "How could this conclusion be false EVEN WHEN the premises are true?" Once you create a 'world' in which something answers that question, the author MUST be assuming the opposite.

Here are two videos that you'll find helpful. The first is specifically about asking that question, the second is about the assumption family, more broadly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfTcOr6zJjs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OITBw0ftwfo

zoezhuyan · Answer

hi  ReedArnoldMPREP 
this is fresh for me. I am curious why you think the ways the conclusion could be FALSE?

thanks for your quick response, would you please elaborate further.

I can understand the meaning of assumption:
1). They are not stated explicitly in the passage

2). They MUST be true for the argument to hold (and if they are FALSE, the argument COLLAPSES).

but I haven't gotten , from feature #2 why we can reasoning that  Once you create a 'world' in which something answers that question, the author MUST be assuming the opposite.

just for example,

if you don't study hard, you won't get 750 on GMAT.
it is not equal to 
if you don't get 750 on GMAT, then you don't study hard.

thanks in advance

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

This is going to teeter a bit too much toward the LSAT for my liking, but:

"If you don't study hard, you won't get a 750 on the GMAT"

IS equivalent to

"If you get a 750 on the GMAT, then you studied hard."

So, if I have an argument:

"It rained. The street must be wet."

Okay. Well.

If the street is wet (due to rain), then there was no tarp that protected the street from the rain. (because if there was, the street would not be wet).

This is equivalent to:

If there was a tarp that protected the tarp from the rain, the street is NOT wet.

So, the author must assume that there was no tarp. It is a NECESSARY assumption for the argument be true.

So if I have the argument:

"It is raining. The street must be wet."

I can ask "How could the street NOT be wet, even if it is raining?"

"Well, IF there is a tarp protecting the street from the rain, it would NOT be wet. So, for the street to be wet, there must NOT BE a tarp protecting the street from the rain."

Basically the arguments are going to lay out something like: "P therefore Q." And then think of a scenario R (that doesn't contradict P) that would make NOT Q: "But if R then NOT Q." So, we can say "the author MUST assume NOT R." (Since "If R then NOT Q" is equivalent to "If Q then Not R").

zoezhuyan · Answer

hi  ReedArnoldMPREP ,

appreciate your response.
I have a further question.
if making conclude false can apply assumption family, then why you read the stem first ?

we can read the argument first, and make conclusion false, what we make the false conclusion, say Y, is opposite the assumption.
So, in strengthen questions, the not Y is our answer, 
in Weaken questions, the Y is our answer. 
in assumption question, Not Y is our answer.

you see, read stem first seems not necessary step 1 on CR questions.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

If by 'stem' you mean the QUESTION itself, (i.e. which of the following can strengthen the argument?), I read it first to determine if the question is an ARGUMENT, or an INFERENCE. Most questions WILL be arguments. But for questions that ask you to DRAW A CONCLUSION or MAKE AN INFERENCE, you don't really want to be in the same 'mindset' as you will be when dealing with a 'premise/conclusion.'

zoezhuyan · Answer

hi  ReedArnoldMPREP 
maybe it is not a good place to ask a question here,

what the different mindsets between arguments that are strengthens weakens assumption and inference questions.

thanks in advance

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