Northwoods Backpackers is a mail-order operation special-izing in outdoor camping and hiking equipment and cloth-ing. In addition to its normal pool of telephone operators to take customer orders, the company has a group of customerservice operators to respond to customer complaints andproduct-related inquiries. The time required for customerservice operators to handle customer calls differs, based onan operator’s ability to think fast and quickly recall from memory product information (without using product de-scription screens on the computer). The company wants to determine the standard time required for a customer serviceoperator to complete a call without having to resort to a timestudy. Instead, management had a work sampling study of an operator conducted during an eight-hour workday that in-cluded 160 observations. The study showed the operator was talking to customers only 78% of the time, and call records indicated that the operator handled 120 customer calls dur-ing the day. The customer service manager has indicated that the particular operator that was studied performs at about 110% compared with a normal operator. Company policy al-lows 15% personal time on the job for lunch, breaks, and so on. Determine the standard time per customer call.
Northwoods Backpackers is a mail-order operation special-
izing in outdoor camping and hiking equipment and cloth-
ing. In addition to its normal pool of telephone operators to
take customer orders, the company has a group of customer
service operators to respond to customer complaints and
product-related inquiries. The time required for customer
service operators to handle customer calls differs, based on
an operator’s ability to think fast and quickly recall from
memory product information (without using product de-
scription screens on the computer). The company wants to
determine the standard time required for a customer service
operator to complete a call without having to resort to a time
study. Instead, management had a work sampling study of
an operator conducted during an eight-hour workday that in-
cluded 160 observations. The study showed the operator was
talking to customers only 78% of the time, and call records
indicated that the operator handled 120 customer calls dur-
ing the day. The customer service manager has indicated that
the particular operator that was studied performs at about
110% compared with a normal operator. Company policy al-
lows 15% personal time on the job for lunch, breaks, and so
on. Determine the standard time per customer call.
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