The School of Accounting (SOA) at State University is planning its annual fundraising campaign for accounting alumni. This year, the SOA is planning a call-a-thon and will ask Beta Alpha Psi members to volunteer to make phone calls to a list of 5,000 alumni. The Dean’s office has agreed to let Beta Alpha Psi use their offices from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. each weekday so that they will have access to phones. Each volunteer will be provided with a phone and a script with an introduction and suggested responses to various questions that had been asked in the past. Carol Johnson, Beta Alpha Psi faculty advisor, estimates the following:
1. Of the 5,000 phone numbers, roughly 10 percent will be wrong numbers (because alumni change addresses and phone numbers without updating State University). In that case, the student is instructed to apologize to the answering party, hang up, and move on to the next phone number. Each of these calls takes about three minutes.
2. Another 15 percent will be correct numbers, but no one is home and the answering machine picks up. In that case, the student is instructed to simply hang up and move on to the next phone number. Each of these calls takes about two minutes.
3. Each time an alumnus answers the phone, the student is instructed to introduce him or herself and read the scripted introduction. The student is encouraged to engage the alumnus in conversation and reminiscences about State U and bring the alum up to date on the wonderful things that are happening in the SOA. Some calls are longer, some shorter, but the average call length is 10 minutes.
Required:
1. Prepare a direct labor budget, in hours, for the fundraising call-a-thon. If 15 students volunteer, how many evenings will the phone-a-thon take? (Round to two significant digits.)
2. What if the phone-a-thon can be moved to the State University Foundation phone bank?
That facility has an automated calling system that will automatically dial the phone numbers and route all answered calls directly to students. As a result, no time is spent dialing and listening to answering machines. The time savings due to having the numbers automatically dialed and routed mean that the average length of a wrong number call drops to one minute and the average length of an alumni call drops to eight minutes. Prepare a direct labor budget, in hours, for the fundraising call-a-thon at the State University Foundation. If 15 students volunteer, how many evenings will the phone-a-thon take? (Round to two significant digits.)