You just finished your MBA degree and your boss wants “to show you off” in an upcoming staff meeting because she feels you have a lot of potential. Needless to say, you feel some pressure. She says the company’s online sales has seen a “high growth” over the past year and feels the customer service staff needs to be “beefed up”, but she is not sure how many new staff are needed. The online sales department was stood up one year ago, and she tasks you to come up with staffing estimates to make sure there are enough customer service staff to meet the demand. Below is the data she gives you for the past 12 months, and then she asks, “How many customer service staff positions would you forecast we need in the next 6 months?”

Year 1 - # of customer service calls received. The online sales office is open from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week, and customer service staff work the entire 12-hour shift. You can assume a single call takes 15 minutes for a customer service rep to handle.

Month	Average # of customer service calls received per day for each month the center was open in year 1
Jan	37
Feb	28
Mar	42
Apr	48
May	63
Jun	71
Jul	75
Aug	74
Sep	88
Oct	93
Nov	95
Dec	102

a. Using Excel, create a linear regression equation to model the number of calls per month.

b. At the current rate of growth, how many customer service calls does the regression equation predict for June of year 2?

c. Given your prediction for June of year 2, how many customer service staff members do you forecast will be needed per 12 hour shift to handle the load?