Question

When making phone calls to clients who owe the practice money, which of the following times of the day can the calls be made?

1) 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
2) 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
3) 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
4) 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
5) Noon to 9 p.m.

Answer 1

The probability questions regarding the number of calls a practice receives are related to the Poisson distribution. To determine probabilities of receiving a certain number of calls, such as six calls or more than eight calls, one would calculate the respective cumulative probabilities in the Poisson distribution with the known average rate of calls.

Step-by-step explanation:

When discussing debt collection calls and times, the answer would depend on the specific debt collection laws of a country or region, which usually regulate the times during which such calls can be made. However, when dealing with probability questions regarding the number of calls a business receives, this falls under the area of business statistics.

The Poisson distribution is often used to model the number of times an event happens in an interval of time if the events occur with a known average rate and independently of the time since the last event. Given that the law office receives on average 5.5 calls at noon, we can use this distribution to answer questions about the probability of receiving a certain number of calls.

For example, to find the probability of receiving at most six calls at noon, one would calculate the cumulative probability of X ≤ 6 in the Poisson distribution with λ = 5.5. Similarly, determining the probability that the office receives more than eight calls at noon involves calculating the cumulative probability for X > 8.