IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sjobre/v57y2005i1d10.1007_bf03372759.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Erfolgszielorientierte Agentenallokation in Inbound Call-Centern

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Helber

    (Universität Hannover)

  • Raik Stolletz

    (Universität Hannover)

  • Sophie Bothe

Abstract

Summary The management of an inbound call center has to make agent staffing decisions in order to deal with highly dynamic rates of incoming calls. A common approach in practice is to determine the smallest number of agents per 30-minute interval in isolation such that some measure of the caller’s waiting time does not exceed a given limit. In this paper we follow a profit-maximizing approach and study the problem to allocate the total agent capacity over a longer planning horizon to minimize costs in the presence of an aggregate service constraint for a support call center and to maximize profits for both a sales and a service call center. The analysis of the numerical results indicates that in a profit-maximizing solution the service quality is time-dependent.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Helber & Raik Stolletz & Sophie Bothe, 2005. "Erfolgszielorientierte Agentenallokation in Inbound Call-Centern," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 3-32, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sjobre:v:57:y:2005:i:1:d:10.1007_bf03372759
    DOI: 10.1007/BF03372759
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF03372759
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF03372759?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. Ger Koole & Avishai Mandelbaum, 2002. "Queueing Models of Call Centers: An Introduction," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 41-59, July.
    2. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Predicting Queueing Delays," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(6), pages 870-888, June.
    3. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Partitioning Customers into Service Groups," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(11), pages 1579-1592, November.
    4. Bruce Andrews & Henry Parsons, 1993. "Establishing Telephone-Agent Staffing Levels through Economic Optimization," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 14-20, April.
    5. Ward Whitt, 1999. "Improving Service by Informing Customers About Anticipated Delays," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(2), pages 192-207, February.
    6. Gary M. Thompson, 1997. "Labor staffing and scheduling models for controlling service levels," Naval Research Logistics (NRL), John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(8), pages 719-740, December.
    7. O. Garnet & A. Mandelbaum & M. Reiman, 2002. "Designing a Call Center with Impatient Customers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 4(3), pages 208-227, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jouini, Oualid & Dallery, Yves & Aksin, Zeynep, 2009. "Queueing models for full-flexible multi-class call centers with real-time anticipated delays," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 389-399, August.
    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. Rouba Ibrahim & Mor Armony & Achal Bassamboo, 2017. "Does the Past Predict the Future? The Case of Delay Announcements in Service Systems," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(6), pages 1762-1780, June.
    4. Chester Chambers & Panagiotis Kouvelis, 2006. "Modeling and Managing the Percentage of Satisfied Customers in Hidden and Revealed Waiting Line Systems," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 15(1), pages 103-116, March.
    5. Merve Bodur & James R. Luedtke, 2017. "Mixed-Integer Rounding Enhanced Benders Decomposition for Multiclass Service-System Staffing and Scheduling with Arrival Rate Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(7), pages 2073-2091, July.
    6. Rouba Ibrahim, 2018. "Sharing delay information in service systems: a literature survey," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 49-79, June.
    7. Defraeye, Mieke & Van Nieuwenhuyse, Inneke, 2016. "Staffing and scheduling under nonstationary demand for service: A literature review," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 4-25.
    8. Najiya Fatma & Varun Ramamohan, 2023. "Patient diversion using real-time delay predictions across healthcare facility networks," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 45(2), pages 437-476, June.
    9. Elvin Coban & Aliza Heching & Alan Scheller‐Wolf, 2019. "Service Center Staffing with Cross‐Trained Agents and Heterogeneous Customers," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 28(4), pages 788-809, April.
    10. Zeynep Akşin & Baris Ata & Seyed Morteza Emadi & Che-Lin Su, 2017. "Impact of Delay Announcements in Call Centers: An Empirical Approach," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 242-265, February.
    11. Robert M. Saltzman & Vijay Mehrotra, 2001. "A Call Center Uses Simulation to Drive Strategic Change," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 87-101, June.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Zhang, Zhe George & Yin, Xiaoling, 2021. "Information and pricing effects in two-tier public service systems," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    15. Aguir, M. Salah & Aksin, O. Zeynep & Karaesmen, Fikri & Dallery, Yves, 2008. "On the interaction between retrials and sizing of call centers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 191(2), pages 398-408, December.
    16. 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.
    17. Sobkowicz, Pawel, 2016. "Agent based model of effects of task allocation strategies in flat organizations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 458(C), pages 17-30.
    18. 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.
    19. De Munck, Thomas & Chevalier, Philippe & Tancrez, Jean-Sébastien, 2023. "Managing priorities on on-demand service platforms with waiting time differentiation," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    20. Rouba Ibrahim & Ward Whitt, 2011. "Wait-Time Predictors for Customer Service Systems with Time-Varying Demand and Capacity," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1106-1118, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    R39;

    JEL classification:

    • R39 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other

    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:spr:sjobre:v:57:y:2005:i:1:d:10.1007_bf03372759. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.