Peer Review of Meera Patel’s Report

To: Meera Patel, Student

From: Matthew De Rose, Student

Date: August 11th, 2020

Subject: Peer Review of “Comparative Analysis of Consumer Engagement Techniques and their Feasibility with Add-On Selling Procedures at London Drugs”

Thank you for submitting your formal report draft. The draft seems incredibly promising and I look forward to reading the final version. Below are some recommendations that you may want to take into consideration when continuing to draft this report.

Title Page

• The title clearly describes both the type of report and a concise description of the subject under investigation
• Compacting the title, audience information, and author information into one page will help make a professional first impression of your research report. Currently this information is spread across multiple pages.
• Separating the letter of intent and the title page clearly will provide a clear delineation of where the start of the report is and will be visually appealing to the reader

Table of Contents

• Designing a visually appealing use of indentations will help clearly demarcate the major and minor sections will help the reader navigate the report easier especially if they have an interest of finding a specific area of the report.

Introduction

General Notes

• Adding a summary of the conclusions made and limitations of the study will readers that need to skim the report get a clear understanding of what can be concluded without having to read the whole report

Background Information 

• Prioritizing the background information required to understand the research conducted by ensuring any new information for the audience has a higher priority than information that may be review will help establish a clear foundation for the research topic being explored without providing excessive redundant details. For example, the “London Drugs” section can be limited to two or (maximum) three breif sentences since it can be assumed the audience is very familiar with London Drugs corporate identity. 
• Ensuring the background information section is brief and to the point makes it easier to track the key information needed to understand the study. For example currently there are two major background information sections “The many forms of add-on selling” and “Add on selling at London Drugs”. Consolidating these sections in a manner where a generalized add on selling technique is described and then immediately exemplified with a specific London Drug upsetting practice may help to create a clearer distinction between the add on selling practices being compared.
• Using examples of add-on selling outside the context of London-drugs adds unnecessary information when explaining each technique. As mentioned in the point above, try and make direct examples to London Drugs current add-on selling techniques and if one cannot be associated then use a very clear example of the use of that add-on selling technique used by a notable brand that can be easily researched further readers are interested to learn more

Scope of the Report

• Discussing the scope of the report as a list of questions will help clarify the answers that are being pursued within the study. For example since three methods and a control method of up-selling are being compared maybe clarify the key characteristics within in each method and pose questions that compare and contrast the different characteristics.
• Separating the purpose of the report and the scope of the report helps ensure the report is concise and clear. For example the first sentence of this section seems to conflate the scope and purpose of the report. Ensuring that the scope covers what kind of questions can be answered with this research and the purpose of the report generalizes what kind of answers will be attained from the questions posed in the scope.

Purpose of the Report

• Ensuring any claims made in this section can be well supported by the conclusions that can be drawn from the study, helps to enforce credibility of the research. For example “it will increase sales and improve the store’s performance relative to other stores in the chain”. Since the study cannot include qualitative sales data it will be difficult to verify that sales will certainly increase with a reprioritization of the add-on selling techniques used by staff.
• Avoiding use of vague language will help to clarify the understood purpose of the research. For example it is stated in the last sentence that “this report’s purpose is to assess the impact…”. The use of the word “impact” is unclear so it may be beneficial to specify what kind of impact is being referred to.
• Keeping the purpose short and concise will help maintain a clear focus on what the central idea is the the research is entered upon. For example the first two sentences repeat what is stated in the last sentence. Consolidating the purpose into one or two key sentences at the start of this section will help simplify the central idea of the research without losing focus

Methodology

• Elaborating more about the implementation details regarding each up-selling method being compared will help provide clarity regarding what differences may be anticipated in the findings given the key characteristics that define each method
• Elaborating more on what the control method will be helps to make distinctions in the conclusion about what key characteristics of each upsetting method may have contributed to improved up-selling
• Elaborating more on how the data will be analyzed will help demarcate what kind of conclusions can be made
• Summarizing the key conclusions made in a separate section within the introduction will help present the information in a manner that will allow the report to be skimmed and read thoroughly
• Referring to where in the report the survey can be found will help navigating the report easier for detailed reading

Style

• Using objective language helps maintain a professional tone throughout the report without conflating personal opinion. For example in the introduction section “The Many Forms of Add-On Selling” the third sentence states “Similarly airlines notoriously”. The use of “notoriously” is subjective and thus a possible change might be “Similarly airlines frequently…” and then ensure that a citation is present to ensure that the claim is supported.

Organization

• The data section might benefit with an added subheadings regarding key characteristics of the up-selling technique to help better compare and contrast each one
• The section called “A Comparison of Procedural Changes” might be a bit confusing given the graphs that were included in this section. Was this a comparison of how customer’s responded to the different procedures?

Design

• The graphics are mostly well designed however a few of the pie charts don’t include the percentage of responses for each response (some only include a few such as the figure used for Procedure A, B and C)
• Ensuring graphics have a caption with a figure number will help readers navigate to them while reading the report
• The headings used throughout are hard to determine which are major and sub headings due to the subtle differences in font (e.g. “The many forms of add-on selling” and “Add-on selling at London Drugs”). Consider using bolding, italicizing, underling and bullet points to help ensure the different headings and subheadings can be clearly understood.

References/Citations

• Ensuring the references and citations are properly MLA formatted will help reference secondary sources in a professional manner, currently the references are list of links

Overall, the sections of report that were available were a pleasure to read and the report will be very interesting to read once it is completed. If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the recommendations made please feel free to email me at matthew.david.derose@gmail.com. Thank you and have a terrific day!

Enclosed: Meera’s Report