IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v204y2010i3p597-603.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modeling latent sources in call center arrival data

Author

Listed:
  • Landon, Joshua
  • Ruggeri, Fabrizio
  • Soyer, Refik
  • Murat Tarimcilar, M.

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss issues that arise in the analysis of call center arrivals that are mostly linked to individual ads. More specifically, we consider the case where there is no complete linkage between the calls and the advertisements that led to the calls. The ability to model and infer such latent call arrival sources is important from a marketing as well as an operations point of view since knowledge of the linkage improves forecasting performance of the model. We pose this as a missing data problem and develop a data augmentation algorithm for the Bayesian analysis. We implement the proposed algorithm to simulated and actual call center arrival data and discuss its performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Landon, Joshua & Ruggeri, Fabrizio & Soyer, Refik & Murat Tarimcilar, M., 2010. "Modeling latent sources in call center arrival data," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 204(3), pages 597-603, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:204:y:2010:i:3:p:597-603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377-2217(09)00790-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Athanassios N. Avramidis & Alexandre Deslauriers & Pierre L'Ecuyer, 2004. "Modeling Daily Arrivals to a Telephone Call Center," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(7), pages 896-908, July.
    2. Bruce H. Andrews & Shawn M. Cunningham, 1995. "L. L. Bean Improves Call-Center Forecasting," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1-13, December.
    3. Noah Gans & Ger Koole & Avishai Mandelbaum, 2003. "Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 5(2), pages 79-141, September.
    4. Weinberg, Jonathan & Brown, Lawrence D. & Stroud, Jonathan R., 2007. "Bayesian Forecasting of an Inhomogeneous Poisson Process With Applications to Call Center Data," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 1185-1198, December.
    5. Geurt Jongbloed & Ger Koole, 2001. "Managing uncertainty in call centres using Poisson mixtures," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 307-318, October.
    6. Refik Soyer & M. Murat Tarimcilar, 2008. "Modeling and Analysis of Call Center Arrival Data: A Bayesian Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 266-278, February.
    7. W. R. Gilks & P. Wild, 1992. "Adaptive Rejection Sampling for Gibbs Sampling," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 41(2), pages 337-348, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ibrahim, Rouba & Ye, Han & L’Ecuyer, Pierre & Shen, Haipeng, 2016. "Modeling and forecasting call center arrivals: A literature survey and a case study," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 865-874.
    2. Musal, R. Muzaffer & Soyer, Refik & McCabe, Christopher & Kharroubi, Samer A., 2012. "Estimating the population utility function: A parametric Bayesian approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 218(2), pages 538-547.
    3. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    4. Tevfik Aktekin & Tahir Ekin, 2016. "Stochastic call center staffing with uncertain arrival, service and abandonment rates: A Bayesian perspective," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(6), pages 460-478, September.
    5. Ekin, Tahir & Aktekin, Tevfik, 2021. "Decision making under uncertain and dependent system rates in service systems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(1), pages 335-348.
    6. Aktekin, Tevfik, 2014. "Call center service process analysis: Bayesian parametric and semi-parametric mixture modeling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 709-719.
    7. Tevfik Aktekin & Refik Soyer, 2012. "Bayesian analysis of queues with impatient customers: Applications to call centers," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(6), pages 441-456, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    2. Ibrahim, Rouba & Ye, Han & L’Ecuyer, Pierre & Shen, Haipeng, 2016. "Modeling and forecasting call center arrivals: A literature survey and a case study," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 865-874.
    3. Rouba Ibrahim & Pierre L'Ecuyer, 2013. "Forecasting Call Center Arrivals: Fixed-Effects, Mixed-Effects, and Bivariate Models," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 72-85, May.
    4. Theresa Maria Rausch & Tobias Albrecht & Daniel Baier, 2022. "Beyond the beaten paths of forecasting call center arrivals: on the use of dynamic harmonic regression with predictor variables," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(4), pages 675-706, May.
    5. Refik Soyer & M. Murat Tarimcilar, 2008. "Modeling and Analysis of Call Center Arrival Data: A Bayesian Approach," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 266-278, February.
    6. Boris N. Oreshkin & Nazim Réegnard & Pierre L’Ecuyer, 2016. "Rate-Based Daily Arrival Process Models with Application to Call Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 510-527, April.
    7. Barrow, Devon & Kourentzes, Nikolaos, 2018. "The impact of special days in call arrivals forecasting: A neural network approach to modelling special days," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(3), pages 967-977.
    8. James W. Taylor, 2012. "Density Forecasting of Intraday Call Center Arrivals Using Models Based on Exponential Smoothing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 534-549, March.
    9. Haipeng Shen & Jianhua Z. Huang, 2008. "Interday Forecasting and Intraday Updating of Call Center Arrivals," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 391-410, July.
    10. Meade, Nigel & Islam, Towhidul, 2015. "Forecasting in telecommunications and ICT—A review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1105-1126.
    11. Kinshuk Jerath & Anuj Kumar & Serguei Netessine, 2015. "An Information Stock Model of Customer Behavior in Multichannel Customer Support Services," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 368-383, July.
    12. Ding, S. & Koole, G. & van der Mei, R.D., 2015. "On the estimation of the true demand in call centers with redials and reconnects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 250-262.
    13. Robbins, Thomas R. & Harrison, Terry P., 2010. "A stochastic programming model for scheduling call centers with global Service Level Agreements," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1608-1619, December.
    14. Tevfik Aktekin & Refik Soyer, 2012. "Bayesian analysis of queues with impatient customers: Applications to call centers," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(6), pages 441-456, September.
    15. Andrea Bastianin & Marzio Galeotti & Matteo Manera, 2019. "Statistical and economic evaluation of time series models for forecasting arrivals at call centers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 923-955, September.
    16. Albrecht, Tobias & Rausch, Theresa Maria & Derra, Nicholas Daniel, 2021. "Call me maybe: Methods and practical implementation of artificial intelligence in call center arrivals’ forecasting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 267-278.
    17. Tevfik Aktekin & Refik Soyer, 2011. "Call center arrival modeling: A Bayesian state‐space approach," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(1), pages 28-42, February.
    18. Noah Gans & Haipeng Shen & Yong-Pin Zhou & Nikolay Korolev & Alan McCord & Herbert Ristock, 2015. "Parametric Forecasting and Stochastic Programming Models for Call-Center Workforce Scheduling," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 571-588, October.
    19. Alex Roubos & Ger Koole & Raik Stolletz, 2012. "Service-Level Variability of Inbound Call Centers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 402-413, July.
    20. Ibrahim, Rouba & L’Ecuyer, Pierre & Shen, Haipeng & Thiongane, Mamadou, 2016. "Inter-dependent, heterogeneous, and time-varying service-time distributions in call centers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 480-492.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:204:y:2010:i:3:p:597-603. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.