Customers of ZQX financial services often call their financial advisers at ZQX for help in understanding the quarterly personal financial statements ZQX sends to customers. For years, there have been consistent complaints about the difficulty of understanding the statements. Despite this, and despite a new company initiative to improve customer service, ZQX has no plans to alter its statements.
Which of the following, if true, would best explain ZQX’s reluctance to alter its statements?
- A. A well respected industry survey consistently ranks ZQX as of the the best financial services companies in the nation.
- B. ZQX’s financial advisers are very effective at answering customers questions about their financial statements.
- C. Customers who have regular contact with their financial advisers are tend to be willing to invest more money with those advisers.
- D. Investors find the quarterly financial statements issued by other financial services companies less confusing that those issued by ZQX.
- E. The company initiative to improve was prompted by complaints regarding certain advisers mishandling of customers fund.
Solution
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Customers of ZQX financial services often call their financial advisers at ZQX for help in understanding the quarterly personal financial statements ZQX sends to customers. | What it says: ZQX customers regularly need help understanding their quarterly statements What it does: Sets up the problem – shows customers are confused by the statements What it is: Author’s claim about customer behavior |
| For years, there have been consistent complaints about the difficulty of understanding the statements. | What it says: The confusion isn’t new – customers have been complaining for years about hard-to-understand statements What it does: Strengthens the problem by showing it’s ongoing and widespread What it is: Author’s claim about complaint history |
| Despite this, and despite a new company initiative to improve customer service, ZQX has no plans to alter its statements. | What it says: Even with years of complaints AND a new push for better customer service, ZQX won’t change the statements What it does: Creates the puzzle – why would a company ignore an obvious customer service problem? What it is: Author’s claim about ZQX’s decision |
Argument Flow:
The passage presents a business puzzle by first establishing that ZQX customers consistently struggle with their statements, then showing this problem has persisted for years, and finally revealing that ZQX refuses to fix this obvious customer service issue despite having a new initiative to improve customer service.
Main Conclusion:
There is no explicit conclusion – this is a paradox setup that asks us to explain ZQX’s seemingly contradictory behavior.
Logical Structure:
This isn’t a traditional argument with premises supporting a conclusion. Instead, it’s a puzzle presentation where each fact builds tension: customer confusion + years of complaints + customer service initiative + refusal to change = ‘Why would they do this?’ The logical structure creates a gap that needs explanation.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Paradox – We need to explain why ZQX won’t change their confusing statements despite customer complaints and a customer service initiative
Precision of Claims
The key claims are about activities and frequency: customers ‘often call’ for help, there have been ‘consistent complaints for years’, ZQX has ‘no plans to alter’ statements despite having a ‘new company initiative to improve customer service’
Strategy
For paradox questions, we need to find explanations that resolve the apparent contradiction. The puzzle here is: why would ZQX ignore an obvious customer service problem when they’re actively trying to improve customer service? We need scenarios that explain this seemingly illogical business decision while accepting all the given facts
Answer Choices Explained
A. A well respected industry survey consistently ranks ZQX as of the the best financial services companies in the nation.
This doesn’t explain the paradox at all. Even if ZQX is highly ranked overall, we still wouldn’t understand why they’d ignore a specific customer service problem when they have an initiative to improve customer service. Being ranked highly doesn’t create an incentive to keep confusing statements.
B. ZQX’s financial advisers are very effective at answering customers questions about their financial statements.
This doesn’t resolve the paradox either. Sure, the advisers can answer questions well, but if ZQX truly wanted to improve customer service, they’d still want to reduce the need for those calls in the first place. Being good at answering questions doesn’t explain why they wouldn’t want to prevent the questions from happening.
C. Customers who have regular contact with their financial advisers are tend to be willing to invest more money with those advisers.
This perfectly explains the paradox! If customers who call frequently end up investing more money, then ZQX has a strong financial incentive to keep the statements confusing. The confusion drives calls, the calls create regular contact, and regular contact leads to more investments. This transforms the apparent customer service problem into a profitable business strategy – explaining why ZQX won’t change despite complaints and their customer service initiative.
D. Investors find the quarterly financial statements issued by other financial services companies less confusing that those issued by ZQX.
This actually makes the paradox worse, not better. If competitors have clearer statements, this gives ZQX even more reason to improve their own statements to stay competitive. This choice deepens the mystery rather than explaining it.
E. The company initiative to improve was prompted by complaints regarding certain advisers mishandling of customers fund.
This doesn’t address the specific issue of statement clarity. Even if the customer service initiative was prompted by a different problem, we still wouldn’t understand why ZQX ignores the statement confusion issue. This choice talks about a separate customer service problem but doesn’t explain the reluctance to fix the statements.
