The business manager of HPH argues that replacing butter with margarine had little influence on their customers based on his interpretations and explanations of two
observations: 1) only 2% of customers complained; 2) customers did not complain about the replacement according to the servers. To evaluate the argument critically, we need to explore other alternative explanations for the facts observed and presented.
Given the fact that only 2% of the customers complained about margarine used to replace butter, the manager believes that 98% of the customers are OK with the replacement. But there might be other reasons why complaint rate was only 2%. For example, perhaps the only way for the customers to complain about the change was to speak to the restaurant staff directly, which the customers may feel reluctant to do for fear of embarrassment or confrontation. If the restaurant had a Facebook page accepting complaints from the customers, the complaint rate might be much higher. Indeed, the customers may have already complained about the change in social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which the restaurant is not fully aware of.
Another possible explanation for the relatively low complaint rate is that the restaurant has done a decent job overall serving the customers. The food was generally delicious and the service was very good. As a result, the customers chose not to complain about the change of butter. But the lack of complaints should not be interpreted as the customers being satisfied with the change without stronger evidence to support such an
interpretation.
As for the servers’ report of few complaints after failing to deliver the order, there are also a number of alternative explanations we need to consider. Maybe the servers chose to withhold information about the complaints they received from the customers in order to look good to the management of HPH. More systematic and independent investigation into the customer satisfaction about the change of ingredient is necessary to settle this issue. Such investigation would help determine whether the customers could not distinguish butter from margarine or used the term “butter” more loosely.
Meanwhile, for the lack of complaints in both cases, we also need to consider the possibility that customers decided not to come to HPH for dinner again after the change
about butter. They simply voted against HPH by their feet without taking the trouble to lodge a complaint. We need to track the customer returning rate before and after the
change about butter to decide if the change has cost the restaurant some customers. Indeed, such loss of customers may be more threatening to the restaurant than complaints as it is harder for the manager to recognize the problems when the customers just gave up the restaurant silently.
In conclusion, we need more information about customers’ attitudes towards the change and a number of other issues to decide which explanations were the most appropriate for the observed facts.
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 1 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 487 350
No. of Characters: 2493 1500
No. of Different Words: 221 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.698 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.119 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.914 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 177 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 140 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 112 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 89 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.35 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 8.224 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.367 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.583 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.129 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 6 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 165, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
... interpretations and explanations of two observations: 1 only 2% of customers com...
^^^
Line 6, column 431, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...out stronger evidence to support such an interpretation. As for the servers’ ...
^^^
Line 12, column 173, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...omer returning rate before and after the change about butter to decide if the cha...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, if, look, may, so, while, as for, as to, for example, in conclusion, such as, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 17.0 28.8173652695 59% => OK
Preposition: 73.0 55.5748502994 131% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 16.3942115768 91% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2572.0 2260.96107784 114% => OK
No of words: 487.0 441.139720559 110% => OK
Chars per words: 5.28131416838 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.69766713281 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.0046520044 2.78398813304 108% => OK
Unique words: 230.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.47227926078 0.468620217663 101% => OK
syllable_count: 783.9 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 4.96107784431 101% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 53.3937262232 57.8364921388 92% => OK
Chars per sentence: 128.6 119.503703932 108% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.35 23.324526521 104% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 9.0 5.15768463074 174% => Less paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.195666634949 0.218282227539 90% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0716755308538 0.0743258471296 96% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0570196639332 0.0701772020484 81% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0983199393774 0.128457276422 77% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0551852844144 0.0628817314937 88% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.6 14.3799401198 108% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 47.12 48.3550499002 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.197005988 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.64 12.5979740519 108% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 103.0 98.500998004 105% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.5 12.3882235529 117% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Maximum six paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.