{"title":"A fast staffing algorithm for multistage call centers with impatient customers and time-dependent overflow","authors":"Michael Manitz, Marc-Philip Piehl","doi":"10.1007/s10100-023-00883-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ensuring customer satisfaction is one of the main objectives of a call center. We focus on the question of how many agents are necessary and how they should be allocated to maintain a service level threshold and reduce the expected waiting time of the customers. In this paper, we consider a multistage call center that consists of a front and a back office, impatient customers, and an overflow mechanism. Based on the performance evaluation of such a system using a continuous-time Markov chain, a configuration of agents is determined using a binary search algorithm. We focus on structural insights, e.g., convexity conditions, to obtain a quick solution for the staffing problem. Since monotonicity does not always hold, the approach is heuristic. The numerical results show the performance of the algorithm. The influence of the fraction requiring second-level service in the back office and the impatience rate for the minimum number of agents is shown.","PeriodicalId":9689,"journal":{"name":"Central European Journal of Operations Research","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Central European Journal of Operations Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10100-023-00883-z","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"OPERATIONS RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Ensuring customer satisfaction is one of the main objectives of a call center. We focus on the question of how many agents are necessary and how they should be allocated to maintain a service level threshold and reduce the expected waiting time of the customers. In this paper, we consider a multistage call center that consists of a front and a back office, impatient customers, and an overflow mechanism. Based on the performance evaluation of such a system using a continuous-time Markov chain, a configuration of agents is determined using a binary search algorithm. We focus on structural insights, e.g., convexity conditions, to obtain a quick solution for the staffing problem. Since monotonicity does not always hold, the approach is heuristic. The numerical results show the performance of the algorithm. The influence of the fraction requiring second-level service in the back office and the impatience rate for the minimum number of agents is shown.
期刊介绍:
The Central European Journal of Operations Research provides an international readership with high quality papers that cover the theory and practice of OR and the relationship of OR methods to modern quantitative economics and business administration.
The focus is on topics such as:
- finance and banking
- measuring productivity and efficiency in the public sector
- environmental and energy issues
- computational tools for strategic decision support
- production management and logistics
- planning and scheduling
The journal publishes theoretical papers as well as application-oriented contributions and practical case studies. Occasionally, special issues feature a particular area of OR or report on the results of scientific meetings.