A Catalog Company That Receives the Majority of Its Orders

Multiple Choice

A catalog company that receives the majority of its orders by telephone conducted a study to determine how long customers were willing to wait on hold before ordering a product. The length of waiting time was found to be a random variable best approximated by an exponential distribution with a mean length of waiting time equal to 2.8 minutes (i.e. the mean number of calls answered in a minute is 1/2.8) . What is the probability that a randomly selected caller is placed on hold fewer than 7 minutes?

A) 0.0009119
B) 0.082085
C) 0.917915
D) 0.9990881