Hi, could someone proofread my essay or provide me with a score from 0-6.
About me: I am a nonnative speaker and I will take the GMAT in 2 weeks.
Many thanks in advance to anyone who provides me with a thorough review or a score!
AWA Essay Question:
The following appeared in a memo to executives at a company that manufactures industrial equipment:
"We are spending too much on free customer service after a sale has been made; we need to limit our warranty to two years in order to improve our profit margins. The current lifetime warranty can lead to costs decades into a product's life cycle. Also, we pay our customer service employees a premium because they must possess expert skills across the entirety of our very diverse product line, including products we no longer sell."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.
My Response:
The argument claims that too much money and time is spent on providing free after-sale customer service. Stated in this way the argument fails to mention several key factors, on the basis of which it could be evaluated. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is not always clear evidence. Hence, the argument is rather weak and has some serious flaws.
First, the argument readily assumes that profit margins will improve if the company limits its free customer service. This statement is a stretch and not substantiated in any way. If revenues decline more than costs do, profit margins will not improve. For example, Apple, one of the most successful companies in the world, spends a lot of money on free customer service. Yet, its revenues easily cover all the costs. The argument could have been much clearer if it explicitly stated that its revenues would not change if the company limited its free after-sale customer service.
Second, the argument claims that the expert skills of the current customer service employees are useless. This is an unsupported claim as the argument does not demonstrate any correlation between the expert skills that current customer service employees have and the quality of the company’s customer service. Clearly, customers are essential for any company to exist, if a company does not take proper care of them, some other company will. If the argument had provided evidence that expert skills do not add any value at all to the quality of their customer service, then the argument would have been a lot more convincing.
Finally, the argument does not mention how much of a premium they pay for the expert skills. Also, It is not known how many products are included in their very diverse product line that they no longer sell and how much operating leverage the company has. Without convincing answers to these questions, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. It could be considerably strengthened if the author clearly mentioned all the relevant facts. Without this information, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.