The following memorandum is from the business manager of Happy Pancake House restaurants.
"Butter has now been replaced by margarine in Happy Pancake House restaurants throughout the southwestern United States. Only about 2 percent of customers have complained, indicating that 98 people out of 100 are happy with the change. Furthermore, many servers have reported that a number of customers who ask for butter do not complain when they are given margarine instead. Clearly, either these customers cannot distinguish butter from margarine or they use the term 'butter' to refer to either butter or margarine. Thus, to avoid the expense of purchasing butter and to increase profitability, the Happy Pancake House should extend this cost-saving change to its restaurants in the southeast and northeast as well."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
In this memo, the business manager of Happy Pancake House suggests that replacing butter with margarine throughout every store for few customers complained and lowered the cost.
The manager indicates that only 2 percent of customers have complained, and concludes that 98 percent are happy with the change. How can he regard no comment equals to satisfaction? It’s likely that the customers who perceived the subtle change may not willing to come to the restaurant again rather than directly express their opinion. In this case, the company save the cost but lose the customers at the same time, precluding the restaurant maximizing the profit.
On the other hand, who did the survey? One possible way is that waitresses randomly ask customers how they feel under this change. To avoid negative responses, it’s self-evident that they would choose customers enjoying the meal. What’s more, waitresses can be dishonest for there’s no any incentive for them to report the real situation to supervisors. It’s also possible that the supervisor submit the dishonest number to headquarter so as not to raise the attention of low efficiency. Even though the percentage is real, but what’s the total sample? If the responses collected are 50, then 1 person says she prefers butter to margarine, suggesting that 2 percent of customers have complained as well. However, as we known from the memo, we can infer that the pancake house is chain store. 50 samples aren’t a representative figure to prove the most of customers’ comments.
Finally, the manager recommends that all the restaurants located in the southeast and the northeast should adopt the new change in order to save cost. Did he make a survey in southeast and northeast? It’s possible that preferences vary dramatically in different regions. Even though those customers in southwestern can accept this change, it’s not necessary that customers in southeast and northeast can adapt to it. Once the customers choose other dessert restaurants instead of Happy Pancake house, the cost is not only the butter but some advertising strategies even discount. What’s worse, this surmise is assumed under the customers will be attracted owing to promotion.
To sum up, it stills more careful consideration before the manager decides to replace butter with margarine in the Southwestern as well as in the Northeast and the Southeast.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- OK
argument 2 -- not exactly. maybe the color, size or taste are similar.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 385 350
No. of Characters: 1948 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.43 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.06 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.742 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 143 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 109 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 68 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.333 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.578 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.476 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.283 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.474 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.085 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 299, Rule ID: NOW[2]
Message: Did you mean 'now' (=at this moment) instead of 'no' (negation)?
Suggestion: now
...esses can be dishonest for there's no any incentive for them to report the re...
^^
Line 5, column 745, Rule ID: PRP_PAST_PART[1]
Message: Possible grammatical error. You used a past participle without using any required verb ('be' or 'have'). Did you mean 'knew'?
Suggestion: knew
...have complained as well. However, as we known from the memo, we can infer that the pa...
^^^^^
Line 7, column 692, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s will be attracted owing to promotion. To sum up, it stills more careful consid...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, however, if, may, so, still, then, well, as well as, to sum up, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 9.0 19.6327345309 46% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 11.1786427146 81% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 29.0 28.8173652695 101% => OK
Preposition: 42.0 55.5748502994 76% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2061.0 2260.96107784 91% => OK
No of words: 384.0 441.139720559 87% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.3671875 5.12650576532 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.4267276788 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.93488427978 2.78398813304 105% => OK
Unique words: 210.0 204.123752495 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.546875 0.468620217663 117% => OK
syllable_count: 629.1 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 19.7664670659 106% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 41.7903741805 57.8364921388 72% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.1428571429 119.503703932 82% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.2857142857 23.324526521 78% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.80952380952 5.70786347227 84% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.278778838657 0.218282227539 128% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0737503903435 0.0743258471296 99% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0727008331361 0.0701772020484 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.168713033615 0.128457276422 131% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0669144331482 0.0628817314937 106% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.0 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.87 12.5979740519 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.39 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 98.500998004 95% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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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.