>The article talked a lot about how the binary up/down, with no ability to comment on specific people/processes/whatever, actually improved both overall ratings

>The article talked a lot about how the binary up/down, with no ability to comment on specific people/processes/whatever, actually improved both overall ratings and the businesses' ability to address negative ratings considerably I guess that makes sense. Individual end-users only ever see the tip of the ice-berg when interacting with a large organization, so they are likely to blame the parts of it that they interact with while ignoring the deeper root-causes. If you let them blame the customer service rep's attitude or the size that their vegetables are chopped then you wind up trying to over-optimize around making the reps smile or definining exactly how to chop the veggies. But if all you know is that people aren't happy with the experience you send a process minded person who is familiar with the whole stack of how things get done to figure out why the service reps are in a foul mood or how come irregularly chopped veggies are winding up on peoples' plates.