Engineered and discretionary overhead costs, unused capacity, customer help-desk. BrightStar, a cable television operator, had 900,000 subscribers in 2009. The company employs eight customer-help-desk representatives to respond to customer questions and problems. During 2009, each customer-help-desk representative worked eight hours per day for 250 days at a fixed annual salary of $48,000. The company received 72,000 telephone calls from its customers in 2009. Each call took an average of 10 minutes. REQUIRED 1. Do you think customer-help-desk costs at BrightStar are engineered costs or discretionary costs? Explain your answer. 2. Calculate the cost of unused customer-help-desk capacity in 2009 under each of the following two assumptions:

(a) customer-help-desk costs are engineered costs and

(b) customer-help- desk costs are discretionary costs. 3. Assume that BrightStar had 1,020,000 subscribers in 2010 and that the 2009 percentage of telephone calls received to total subscribers continued into 2010. Customer-help-desk capac- ity in 2010 was the same as it was in 2009. Calculate the cost of unused customer-help-desk capacity in 2010 under each of the following two assumptions:

(a) customer-service costs are engineered costs and

(b) customer-service costs are discretionary costs.

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