You will hear a meeting involving members of a quality improvement group in a

Part Three. Questions 23 to 30.
You will hear a meeting involving members of a quality improvement group in a manufacturing company. The department head, Sandra, is talking to a female colleague, Fiona, and a male colleague, Jamie.
For each question, 23-30, mark one letter (A, B or C) for the correct answer.
After you have listened once, replay the recording.
You have 45 seconds to read through the questions.
[pause]
Now listen, and mark A, B or C.
[pause]
Woman: Have you got the list of topics I circulated?
Man: Mmn.
Woman: Right. First, the perennial problem of telephone calls.
Man: Yes. It’s so irritating when someone’s phone is left ringing because they’re away from their desk.
Woman: It’s ages before anyone bothers to answer the phone for them.
Woman: Isn’t the real reason that often callers ask for somebody they’ve spoken to before, but it may be a completely different matter, which that person can’t deal with? And we’re so used to that happening, we’re not taking calls seriously.
Man: Then callers get annoyed that we can’t help them.
Woman: Right.
Woman: Shall we get the switchboard to ask what they’re ringing about? Man,
Woman: Yes.
Woman: But shouldn’t we also set a time limit for answering the phone?
Woman: Perhaps we could measure the time people take to answer, and see if there really is a problem.
Woman: But we mustn’t tell everyone, or they’ll answer quickly, and it won’t be realistic.
Man: What about some training?
Woman: No, maybe Fiona’s right, her idea is all we need. And we can repeat the exercise in six months’ time.
Man: OK.
Woman: Next there’s sales. We all know there’s a slowdown, but we don’t seem to be responding adequately.
Man: I reckon we ought to use the internet more actively. Our website brings in a trickle of customers, but we need to benchmark by looking at other companies’ sites, too.
Woman: To see how our products stand up to comparison?
Man: Right. Our customers could be buying from anywhere in the world. We don’t really know enough about how we compare in price, or quality.
Woman: It probably wouldn’t help sales directly. What else could we do?
Woman: What about discounts, to encourage customers to purchase larger quantities?
Man: Our products aren’t really price-sensitive. Customers buy them for quality and reliability.
Woman: Then they’re the selling points we should be publicising.
Man: The effect would be marginal. But if we broadened our range, customers could purchase goods from us that they currently source from other suppliers.
Woman: Good idea. Fiona?
Woman: Yes.
Woman: Then we’ll look into that in depth next time. Next, we need more support staff, so sales people can spend more time selling. What do you think?
Woman: Yes, ideally. But we’ll never get an increase in staffing levels though.
Man: You’re right. There’s already a policy of cuts through natural wastage. There’s no point trying to change it.
Woman: You know Sarah, in Accounts? She wants a new job, and she’s too good to lose. Maybe she could be transferred.
Woman: And Accounts have just upgraded their software, so they probably don’t need all their staff.
Man: There might be other people too.
Woman: Then let’s propose that. Now shifts. You wanted to raise this, Fiona?
Woman: Oh yes. The Quality Control records show that since the night shift was introduced, it’s had a very high percentage of defective items that have to be rejected. We need to reduce the figure.
Man: I think it’s because some people who used to work only on day shifts don’t like working at night.
Woman: Yes, several supervisors have noticed the resentment. I think it’ll die down of its own accord. But Fiona, the problem you mentioned is normal with night shifts. We can’t do much about it.
Woman: At least we should look into it.
Man: I agree.
Woman: OK. Next time then. Now Jamie, you wanted to bring up communication.
Man: Yes. I know that senior management takes communication very seriously, and encourages things like phoning and emailing customers to get feedback on products, and using the intranet so all the staff know about vacancies, new policies, and so on. But some basic things aren’t adequately dealt with. The purchasing officers are always complaining that it’s too long before they’re told about sales orders.
Woman: It would help if we had a communications officer.
Woman: But we can suggest improvements to any of the departmental heads.
Man: I agree with Fiona. If a position is created with that particular responsibility, it signals that communication is taken seriously.
Woman: Well the company does take it seriously. So if we don’t signal that ourselves, maybe we should propose that one of the senior managers takes it on.
Woman: It’s worth trying.
Man: Yes.
Woman: Right. Well that’s everything for today. Thank you both very much.