Every year, May Seas employees are required to attend seminars that

Question

Every year, May Seas employees are required to attend seminars that focus on improving the quality of customer service. The budget allocated to these annual seminars is $500,000. Last year, less than 1% percent of May Seas Department Store customers filed a complaint about the quality of service they received from the store's employees. Therefore, May Seas should reallocate $400,000 of the seminar budget to advertising.

Which of the following most weakens the above conclusion?

Which of the following most weakens the above conclusion?

A. Last year, May Seas was voted Customer Service Provider of The Year.

B. There is a strong positive correlation between May Seas' advertising budget and its revenues.

C. May Seas investigated every complaint received last year, and customers whose complaint was found to be justified received compensation.

D. Complaint forms and boxes are positioned at every entrance to the store, and on the May Seas website.

E. May Seas' advertising budget has grown steadily over the past five years, but the number of customers has not increased.

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Maheshkv · Answer

Well, i am bit bewildered on how would option E weaken the conclusion. Overall it says that despite the advertising budget increasing steadily over past few years, the number of customers has not increased.

Does that mean advertising does have no effect on sales? may be it does, it might have prevented the drop in customers. 
So, not quite sure on how would this weaken the conclusion.

Would love to hear others thoughts here!

Abhishek009 · Answer

< 1.00% Complaint on Customer Service --------> Cut down costly seminars on customer service & allocate to advertising.

May be it may have adverse effect !!! " In absence of proper customer service seminars" the customer complaints may increase.

Further Customer service may be the most crippling problem to the Company and is leading to less customer increase, and if the Customer service improvement is not improved then existing customers will also not be willing to return.

Thus, (E) has to be a weakener..

Maheshkv · Answer

But why not A?

Last year, May Seas was voted Customer Service Provider of The Year.--> I would interpret this as <1% complaints on customer service is not normal but the best in the industry. Hence if we reallocate the budget, then this might not result anymore.

Please let me know any gap in my understanding

exuberantvivek · Answer

There line of reasoning is, even after enough advertising the customer count didn't increase because we have many customer complaints.
So we shall still focus on seminar and should not divert the seminar budget to advertising.

Only this line of reasoning, 'E' weakens the conclusion.
This is the best I could think of!

Maheshkv · Answer

But  exuberantvivek , less than 1% complained on quality of service, Although i do agree that percentages are delusional.

I am not sure if the question is very well framed or it might be me who is getting it wrong

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Every year, May Seas employees are required to attend seminars that focus on improving the quality of customer service. The budget allocated to these annual seminars is $500,000. Last year, less than 1% percent of May Seas Department Store customers filed a complaint about the quality of service they received from the store's employees. Therefore, May Seas should reallocate $400,000 of the seminar budget to advertising.

Which of the following most weakens the above conclusion?

Which of the following most weakens the above conclusion?

A. Last year, May Seas was voted Customer Service Provider of The Year.

Incorrect.

To solve this Conclusion Weakening question, first break down the argument. The first three sentences are premises which provide factual data; the last sentence uses the conclusion conjunction Therefore so it's the conclusion:

Premise A: May Seas employees attend a customer service seminar annually
 +
Premise B: the seminar costs $500,000
 +
Premise C: last year less than 1% of the customers complained about the service
 =
Conclusion: $400,000 should be taken from the seminar budget and added to the advertising budget

Possible assumption: reducing the seminar budget would not reduce the number of customers - AND- the company will gain by increasing the advertising budget

Weakening Data: ?

You are required to find data that weakens the conclusion that $400,000 should be transferred from the seminar budget to the advertising budget. The correct answer could be one that exposes the argument's assumption.

This answer choice strengthens the argument's conclusion, but you're required to weaken it. This data supports the premise about the low percentage of customer complaints and, therefore, just gives us another reason to believe that the $400,000 is not really needed to improve customer service.

B. There is a strong positive correlation between May Seas' advertising budget and its revenues.

Incorrect.

This answer choice strengthens the argument's conclusion, but you're required to weaken it. By stating that increasing the advertising budget is likely to increase May Seas' revenues, this answer choice directly supports transferring more money to the advertising budget.

C. May Seas investigated every complaint received last year, and customers whose complaint was found to be justified received compensation.

Incorrect.

This answer choice neither weakens nor strengthens the conclusion. Because it does not favor the importance of the seminar's budget over that of advertising, or vice versa, it is irrelevant to the argument of where the funds should be allocated.

D. Complaint forms and boxes are positioned at every entrance to the store, and on the May Seas website.

Incorrect.

This answer choice strengthens the argument's conclusion, but you're required to weaken it. By stating how accessible complaints forms and boxes are, this answer choice simply shows that the low percentage of complaints truly reflects a low percentage of unsatisfied customers.

E. May Seas' advertising budget has grown steadily over the past five years, but the number of customers has not increased.

This answer choice weakens the argument's assumption. It does so by providing evidence that shows that even when the advertising budget is increased, the number of customers does not grow. This fact undermines the conclusion that the seminar money should be transferred to the advertising budget since it would just be wasted and have no effect.

kex · Answer

I found it a feeble question, increased advertising could potentially avert the loss of customers, albeit the number of customers being unchanged.

VerbalBot · Answer

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