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Routing to Manage Resolution and Waiting Time in Call Centers with Heterogeneous Servers

Author

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  • Vijay Mehrotra

    (School of Management, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94117)

  • Kevin Ross

    (Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064)

  • Geoff Ryder

    (SAP Labs, Palo Alto, California 94304)

  • Yong-Pin Zhou

    (Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195)

Abstract

In many call centers, agents are trained to handle all arriving calls but exhibit very different performance for the same call type, where we define performance by both the average call handling time and the call resolution probability. In this paper, we explore strategies for determining which calls should be handled by which agents, where these assignments are dynamically determined based on the specific attributes of the agents and/or the current state of the system. We test several routing strategies using data obtained from a medium-sized financial service firm's customer service call centers and present empirical performance results. These results allow us to characterize overall performance in terms of customer waiting time and overall resolution rate, identifying an efficient frontier of routing rules for this contact center.

Suggested Citation

  • Vijay Mehrotra & Kevin Ross & Geoff Ryder & Yong-Pin Zhou, 2012. "Routing to Manage Resolution and Waiting Time in Call Centers with Heterogeneous Servers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 66-81, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormsom:v:14:y:2012:i:1:p:66-81
    DOI: 10.1287/msom.1110.0349
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Rong Liu & Akhil Kumar & Juhnyoung Lee, 2022. "Multi-level Team Assignment in Social Business Processes: An Algorithm and Simulation Study," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(6), pages 1949-1969, December.
    3. Ibrahim, Rouba & L’Ecuyer, Pierre & Shen, Haipeng & Thiongane, Mamadou, 2016. "Inter-dependent, heterogeneous, and time-varying service-time distributions in call centers," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 250(2), pages 480-492.
    4. Ryan, Gerard & Hernández-Maskivker, Gilda-María & Valverde, Mireia & Pàmies-Pallisé, Maria-del-Mar, 2018. "Challenging conventional wisdom: Positive waiting," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 64-72.
    5. Dongyuan Zhan & Amy R. Ward, 2014. "Threshold Routing to Trade Off Waiting and Call Resolution in Call Centers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 220-237, May.
    6. Tom Fangyun Tan & Serguei Netessine, 2019. "When You Work with a Superman, Will You Also Fly? An Empirical Study of the Impact of Coworkers on Performance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(8), pages 3495-3517, August.
    7. Opher Baron & Oded Berman & Dmitry Krass & Jianfu Wang, 2017. "Strategic Idleness and Dynamic Scheduling in an Open-Shop Service Network: Case Study and Analysis," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 52-71, February.
    8. Jose A. Guajardo & Morris A. Cohen, 2018. "Service Differentiation and Operating Segments: A Framework and an Application to After-Sales Services," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 20(3), pages 440-454, July.
    9. Opher Baron & Oded Berman & Dmitry Krass & Jianfu Wang, 2014. "Using Strategic Idleness to Improve Customer Service Experience in Service Networks," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 62(1), pages 123-140, February.
    10. Brett Alan Hathaway & Seyed Morteza Emadi & Vinayak Deshpande, 2022. "Personalized Priority Policies in Call Centers Using Past Customer Interaction Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2806-2823, April.
    11. Paulo B. Goes & Noyan Ilk & Mingfeng Lin & J. Leon Zhao, 2018. "When More Is Less: Field Evidence on Unintended Consequences of Multitasking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(7), pages 3033-3054, July.
    12. Tom F. Tan & Bradley R. Staats, 2020. "Behavioral Drivers of Routing Decisions: Evidence from Restaurant Table Assignment," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(4), pages 1050-1070, April.

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