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Staffing and Control of Instant Messaging Contact Centers

Author

Listed:
  • Jun Luo

    (Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong S.A.R., China)

  • Jiheng Zhang

    (Department of Industrial Engineering and Logistics Management, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong S.A.R., China)

Abstract

In addition to traditional call centers, many companies have started building a new kind of customer contact center, in which agents communicate with customers via instant messaging (IM) over the Internet rather than phone calls. A distinctive feature of the service centers based on IM is that one agent can serve multiple customers in parallel. We choose to model such a center as a server pool consisting of many limited processor-sharing servers. We characterize the underlying stochastic processes by establishing a fluid approximation in the many-server heavy-traffic regime. The limiting behavior of the stochastic processes is shown to involve a stochastic averaging principle, and the fluid approximation provides insights into the optimal staffing and control for such service centers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jun Luo & Jiheng Zhang, 2013. "Staffing and Control of Instant Messaging Contact Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(2), pages 328-343, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:61:y:2013:i:2:p:328-343
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.1120.1151
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    References listed on IDEAS

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