Nowadays you can’t buy anything without then being asked to provide a rating of a company’s performance on a five-star scale.
I’ve been asked to rate my “store (26)_____” on the EFTPOS terminal before I can pay. Even the most (27)_____ activities, such as calling Telstra or picking up a parcel from Australia Post, are followed by texts or emails with surveys asking, “How did we do?”
Online purchases are (28)_____ followed up by a customer satisfaction survey. Companies are so (29)_____ for a hit of stars that if you delete the survey the company sends you another one.
We’re (30)_____ to rate our apps when we’ve barely had a chance to use them. One online course provider I use asks you what you think of the course after you’ve only completed (31)_____ 2 per cent of it.
Economist Jason Murphy says that companies use customer satisfaction ratings because a (32)_____ display of star feedback has become the nuclear power sources of the modern economy.
However, you can’t help but (33)_____ if these companies are basing their business on fabrications (捏造的东西). I (34)_____ that with online surveys I just click the (35)_____ that’s closest to my mouse cursor (光标) to get the damn thing off my screen. Often the star rating I give has far more to do with the kind of day I’m having than the purchase I just made.


