IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v61y2015i1p73-91.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Logarithmic Safety Staffing Rule for Contact Centers with Call Blending

Author

Listed:
  • Guodong Pang

    (The Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802)

  • Ohad Perry

    (Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208)

Abstract

We consider large contact centers that handle two types of jobs—inbound and outbound—simultaneously, a process commonly referred to as call blending . Inbound work arrives to the system according to an exogenous arrival process, whereas outbound work is generated by the contact center. We assume that there is an infinite supply of outbound work to process, and that inbound calls are prioritized over the outbound calls. We propose a logarithmic safety staffing rule, combined with a threshold control policy, ensuring that agents' utilization is very close to one at all times, but that there are practically always idle agents present. Specifically, we prove that it is possible to have almost all inbound calls answered immediately upon their arrival, in addition to satisfying a target long-run throughput rate of outbound calls, with at most a negligible proportion of those calls dropped. Simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of our analysis. This paper was accepted by Assaf Zeevi, stochastic models and simulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Guodong Pang & Ohad Perry, 2015. "A Logarithmic Safety Staffing Rule for Contact Centers with Call Blending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 73-91, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:61:y:2015:i:1:p:73-91
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2014.2019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2019
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.2014.2019?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. Itay Gurvich & Mor Armony & Constantinos Maglaras, 2009. "Cross-Selling in a Call Center with a Heterogeneous Customer Population," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(2), pages 299-313, April.
    2. Itai Gurvich & Ohad Perry, 2012. "Overflow Networks: Approximations and Implications to Call Center Outsourcing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 996-1009, August.
    3. Douglas A. Samuelson, 1999. "Predictive Dialing for Outbound Telephone Call Centers," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 66-81, October.
    4. Shlomo Halfin & Ward Whitt, 1981. "Heavy-Traffic Limits for Queues with Many Exponential Servers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 567-588, June.
    5. Ohad Perry & Ward Whitt, 2011. "A Fluid Approximation for Service Systems Responding to Unexpected Overloads," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1159-1170, October.
    6. Ward Whitt, 2004. "Efficiency-Driven Heavy-Traffic Approximations for Many-Server Queues with Abandonments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(10), pages 1449-1461, October.
    7. Achal Bassamboo & Ramandeep S. Randhawa & Assaf Zeevi, 2010. "Capacity Sizing Under Parameter Uncertainty: Safety Staffing Principles Revisited," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1668-1686, October.
    8. Ohad Perry & Ward Whitt, 2013. "A Fluid Limit for an Overloaded X Model via a Stochastic Averaging Principle," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(2), pages 294-349, May.
    9. 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.
    10. Achal Bassamboo & Ramandeep S. Randhawa & Jan A. Van Mieghem, 2012. "A Little Flexibility Is All You Need: On the Asymptotic Value of Flexible Capacity in Parallel Queuing Systems," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1423-1435, December.
    11. Noah Gans & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2003. "A Call-Routing Problem with Service-Level Constraints," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 51(2), pages 255-271, April.
    12. Itai Gurvich & Ward Whitt, 2010. "Service-Level Differentiation in Many-Server Service Systems via Queue-Ratio Routing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 316-328, April.
    13. Mor Armony & Itai Gurvich, 2010. "When Promotions Meet Operations: Cross-Selling and Its Effect on Call Center Performance," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 470-488, April.
    14. Avishai Mandelbaum & Sergey Zeltyn, 2009. "Staffing Many-Server Queues with Impatient Customers: Constraint Satisfaction in Call Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(5), pages 1189-1205, October.
    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. Li Xiao & Susan H. Xu & David D. Yao & Hanqin Zhang, 2022. "Optimal staffing for ticket queues," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 102(1), pages 309-351, October.
    2. Barış Ata & Xiaoshan Peng, 2020. "An Optimal Callback Policy for General Arrival Processes: A Pathwise Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(2), pages 327-347, March.
    3. Vianney Bœuf & Philippe Robert, 2019. "A stochastic analysis of a network with two levels of service," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 92(3), pages 203-232, August.

    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. Noa Zychlinski, 2023. "Applications of fluid models in service operations management," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 161-185, February.
    2. Alexander L. Stolyar & Tolga Tezcan, 2011. "Shadow-Routing Based Control of Flexible Multiserver Pools in Overload," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1427-1444, December.
    3. Itai Gurvich & Ohad Perry, 2012. "Overflow Networks: Approximations and Implications to Call Center Outsourcing," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(4), pages 996-1009, August.
    4. Mor Armony & Avishai Mandelbaum, 2011. "Routing and Staffing in Large-Scale Service Systems: The Case of Homogeneous Impatient Customers and Heterogeneous Servers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(1), pages 50-65, February.
    5. Jouini, Oualid & Pot, Auke & Koole, Ger & Dallery, Yves, 2010. "Online scheduling policies for multiclass call centers with impatient customers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(1), pages 258-268, November.
    6. Achal Bassamboo & Ramandeep S. Randhawa & Assaf Zeevi, 2010. "Capacity Sizing Under Parameter Uncertainty: Safety Staffing Principles Revisited," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(10), pages 1668-1686, October.
    7. Jinsheng Chen & Jing Dong & Pengyi Shi, 2020. "A survey on skill-based routing with applications to service operations management," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 53-82, October.
    8. Itai Gurvich & Junfei Huang & Avishai Mandelbaum, 2014. "Excursion-Based Universal Approximations for the Erlang-A Queue in Steady-State," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 39(2), pages 325-373, May.
    9. Achal Bassamboo & Ramandeep S. Randhawa, 2010. "On the Accuracy of Fluid Models for Capacity Sizing in Queueing Systems with Impatient Customers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(5), pages 1398-1413, October.
    10. Avishai Mandelbaum & Petar Momčilović, 2012. "Queues with Many Servers and Impatient Customers," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 41-65, February.
    11. Amy R. Ward & Mor Armony, 2013. "Blind Fair Routing in Large-Scale Service Systems with Heterogeneous Customers and Servers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 228-243, February.
    12. Achal Bassamboo & J. Michael Harrison & Assaf Zeevi, 2006. "Design and Control of a Large Call Center: Asymptotic Analysis of an LP-Based Method," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 419-435, June.
    13. 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.
    14. A. J. E. M. Janssen & J. S. H. van Leeuwaarden & Bert Zwart, 2011. "Refining Square-Root Safety Staffing by Expanding Erlang C," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1512-1522, December.
    15. Josh Reed & Bo Zhang, 2017. "Managing capacity and inventory jointly for multi-server make-to-stock queues," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 86(1), pages 61-94, June.
    16. Xiaofang Wang & Laurens G. Debo & Alan Scheller-Wolf & Stephen F. Smith, 2010. "Design and Analysis of Diagnostic Service Centers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(11), pages 1873-1890, November.
    17. Zhenghua Long & Nahum Shimkin & Hailun Zhang & Jiheng Zhang, 2020. "Dynamic Scheduling of Multiclass Many-Server Queues with Abandonment: The Generalized cμ / h Rule," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 1128-1230, July.
    18. Ohad Perry & Ward Whitt, 2013. "A Fluid Limit for an Overloaded X Model via a Stochastic Averaging Principle," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 38(2), pages 294-349, May.
    19. Fei Gao & Xuanming Su, 2018. "Omnichannel Service Operations with Online and Offline Self-Order Technologies," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(8), pages 3595-3608, August.
    20. Noah Gans & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2007. "Call-Routing Schemes for Call-Center Outsourcing," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 9(1), pages 33-50, May.

    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:ormnsc:v:61:y:2015:i:1:p:73-91. 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.