Originally Posted by darthbimmer

A friend of mine who specializes in marketing analytics told me the practice is called top-boxing. Customers are presented a 1-5 scale to rate their satisfaction but the answer is treated as a binary: either 5/5 was selected, or it was not. (With 1-10 scales often the 9 and 10 scores are considered equal as success and 1-8 all indicate failure.) It's misleading to customers because responses like 4/5, which are presented with positive descriptions, count as negative marks against the staff or business.