IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/oropre/v59y2011i5p1304-1308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

TECHNICAL NOTE---A Note on Profit Maximization and Monotonicity for Inbound Call Centers

Author

Listed:
  • Ger Koole

    (Department of Mathematics, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Auke Pot

    (CCmath, 1181 BH Amstelveen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

We consider an inbound call center with a fixed reward per call and communication and agent costs. By controlling the number of lines and the number of agents, we can maximize the profit. Abandonments are included in our performance model. Monotonicity results for the maximization problem are obtained, which lead to an efficient optimization procedure. We give a counterexample to the concavity in the number of agents, which is equivalent to saying that the law of diminishing returns does not hold. Numerical results are given.

Suggested Citation

  • Ger Koole & Auke Pot, 2011. "TECHNICAL NOTE---A Note on Profit Maximization and Monotonicity for Inbound Call Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1304-1308, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:59:y:2011:i:5:p:1304-1308
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.1110.0990
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.1110.0990
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/opre.1110.0990?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aksin, O. Zeynep & Harker, Patrick T., 2003. "Capacity sizing in the presence of a common shared resource: Dimensioning an inbound call center," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 464-483, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Mor Armony & Erica Plambeck & Sridhar Seshadri, 2009. "Sensitivity of Optimal Capacity to Customer Impatience in an Unobservable M/M/S Queue (Why You Shouldn't Shout at the DMV)," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 11(1), pages 19-32, June.
    4. Bruce Andrews & Henry Parsons, 1993. "Establishing Telephone-Agent Staffing Levels through Economic Optimization," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 14-20, April.
    5. Bruce H. Andrews & Henry L. Parsons, 1989. "L. L. Bean Chooses a Telephone Agent Scheduling System," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 19(6), pages 1-9, December.
    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. Hayriye Ayhan, 2022. "Server assignment policies in queues with customer abandonments," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 100(3), pages 393-395, April.

    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. 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.
    2. Vijay Mehrotra & Thomas A. Grossman, 2009. "OR Process Skills Transform an Out-of-Control Call Center into a Strategic Asset," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 39(4), pages 346-352, August.
    3. Castillo, Ignacio & Joro, Tarja & Li, Yong Yue, 2009. "Workforce scheduling with multiple objectives," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 196(1), pages 162-170, July.
    4. Dietz, Dennis C., 2011. "Practical scheduling for call center operations," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 550-557, October.
    5. Xiaofang Wang & Laurens G. Debo & Alan Scheller‐Wolf & Stephen F. Smith, 2012. "Service design at diagnostic service centers," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 59(8), pages 613-628, December.
    6. Opher Baron & Joseph Milner, 2009. "Staffing to Maximize Profit for Call Centers with Alternate Service-Level Agreements," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 685-700, June.
    7. Legros, Benjamin & Jouini, Oualid, 2019. "On the scheduling of operations in a chat contact center," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(1), pages 303-316.
    8. Robert M. Saltzman & Vijay Mehrotra, 2001. "A Call Center Uses Simulation to Drive Strategic Change," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 87-101, June.
    9. 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.
    10. Z. Justin Ren & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2008. "Call Center Outsourcing: Coordinating Staffing Level and Service Quality," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 369-383, February.
    11. Atul Bhandari & Alan Scheller-Wolf & Mor Harchol-Balter, 2008. "An Exact and Efficient Algorithm for the Constrained Dynamic Operator Staffing Problem for Call Centers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 339-353, February.
    12. 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.
    13. S Casado & M Laguna & J Pacheco, 2005. "Heuristical labour scheduling to optimize airport passenger flows," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 56(6), pages 649-658, June.
    14. Linda V. Green & Peter J. Kolesar & João Soares, 2001. "Improving the Sipp Approach for Staffing Service Systems That Have Cyclic Demands," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 549-564, August.
    15. Easton, Fred F. & Mansour, Nashat, 1999. "A distributed genetic algorithm for deterministic and stochastic labor scheduling problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 505-523, November.
    16. Casado Yusta, S. & Pacheco Bonrostro, J., 2003. "Estudio comparativo de diferentes estrategias metaheurísticas para la resolución del labor scheduling problem./Analisys of different methauristas for solving labor scheduling," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 21, pages 537-554, December.
    17. Rami Atar & Adam Shwartz, 2008. "Efficient Routing in Heavy Traffic Under Partial Sampling of Service Times," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(4), pages 899-909, November.
    18. 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.
    19. Philipp Afèche & Mojtaba Araghi & Opher Baron, 2017. "Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Service Access Quality: Optimal Advertising, Capacity Level, and Capacity Allocation," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 674-691, October.
    20. Tolga Tezcan & Banafsheh Behzad, 2012. "Robust Design and Control of Call Centers with Flexible Interactive Voice Response Systems," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 386-401, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    call centers; monotonicity;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:inm:oropre:v:59:y:2011:i:5:p:1304-1308. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.