IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormsom/v14y2012i3p402-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Service-Level Variability of Inbound Call Centers

Author

Listed:
  • Alex Roubos

    (Department of Mathematics, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Ger Koole

    (Department of Mathematics, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Raik Stolletz

    (Business School, University of Mannheim, 68131 Mannheim, Germany)

Abstract

In practice, call center service levels are reported over periods of finite length that are usually no longer than 24 hours. In such small periods the service level has a large variability. It is therefore not sufficient to base staffing decisions only on the expected service level. In this paper we consider the classical M / M / s queueing model that is often used in call centers. We develop accurate approximations for the service-level distribution based on extensive simulations. This distribution is used for a service-level variability-controlled staffing approach to circumvent the shortcomings of the traditional staffing based on the expected service level.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Roubos & Ger Koole & Raik Stolletz, 2012. "Service-Level Variability of Inbound Call Centers," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 14(3), pages 402-413, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormsom:v:14:y:2012:i:3:p:402-413
    DOI: 10.1287/msom.1120.0382
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/msom.1120.0382
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/msom.1120.0382?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. Athanassios N. Avramidis & Alexandre Deslauriers & Pierre L'Ecuyer, 2004. "Modeling Daily Arrivals to a Telephone Call Center," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(7), pages 896-908, July.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Opher Baron & Joseph Milner, 2009. "Staffing to Maximize Profit for Call Centers with Alternate Service-Level Agreements," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 685-700, June.
    5. Stolletz, Raik, 2008. "Approximation of the non-stationary M(t)/M(t)/c(t)-queue using stationary queueing models: The stationary backlog-carryover approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 478-493, October.
    6. Douglas J. Thomas, 2005. "Measuring Item Fill-Rate Performance in a Finite Horizon," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 74-80, September.
    7. Geurt Jongbloed & Ger Koole, 2001. "Managing uncertainty in call centres using Poisson mixtures," Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 307-318, October.
    8. Lawrence Brown & Noah Gans & Avishai Mandelbaum & Anat Sakov & Haipeng Shen & Sergey Zeltyn & Linda Zhao, 2005. "Statistical Analysis of a Telephone Call Center: A Queueing-Science Perspective," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 36-50, March.
    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. Andrea Bastianin & Marzio Galeotti & Matteo Manera, 2019. "Statistical and economic evaluation of time series models for forecasting arrivals at call centers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 923-955, September.
    2. Feng Dong & Qiguo Gong & Hui Wang & Siyuan Yi & Yue Cai, 2019. "Rest Breaks Arrange Based on Empirical Studies of Productivity in Manufacturing Industry," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(9), pages 1043-1066, September.

    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. Noah Gans & Haipeng Shen & Yong-Pin Zhou & Nikolay Korolev & Alan McCord & Herbert Ristock, 2015. "Parametric Forecasting and Stochastic Programming Models for Call-Center Workforce Scheduling," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 571-588, October.
    2. Barrow, Devon & Kourentzes, Nikolaos, 2018. "The impact of special days in call arrivals forecasting: A neural network approach to modelling special days," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 264(3), pages 967-977.
    3. Rouba Ibrahim & Pierre L'Ecuyer, 2013. "Forecasting Call Center Arrivals: Fixed-Effects, Mixed-Effects, and Bivariate Models," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 15(1), pages 72-85, May.
    4. James W. Taylor, 2012. "Density Forecasting of Intraday Call Center Arrivals Using Models Based on Exponential Smoothing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(3), pages 534-549, March.
    5. Theresa Maria Rausch & Tobias Albrecht & Daniel Baier, 2022. "Beyond the beaten paths of forecasting call center arrivals: on the use of dynamic harmonic regression with predictor variables," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 92(4), pages 675-706, May.
    6. Ding, S. & Koole, G. & van der Mei, R.D., 2015. "On the estimation of the true demand in call centers with redials and reconnects," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 250-262.
    7. Ward Whitt, 2006. "Staffing a Call Center with Uncertain Arrival Rate and Absenteeism," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 15(1), pages 88-102, March.
    8. Andrea Bastianin & Marzio Galeotti & Matteo Manera, 2019. "Statistical and economic evaluation of time series models for forecasting arrivals at call centers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 923-955, September.
    9. Robbins, Thomas R. & Harrison, Terry P., 2010. "A stochastic programming model for scheduling call centers with global Service Level Agreements," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(3), pages 1608-1619, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Haipeng Shen & Jianhua Z. Huang, 2008. "Interday Forecasting and Intraday Updating of Call Center Arrivals," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 391-410, July.
    12. James W. Taylor, 2008. "A Comparison of Univariate Time Series Methods for Forecasting Intraday Arrivals at a Call Center," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(2), pages 253-265, February.
    13. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    14. Boris N. Oreshkin & Nazim Réegnard & Pierre L’Ecuyer, 2016. "Rate-Based Daily Arrival Process Models with Application to Call Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 64(2), pages 510-527, April.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Niyirora, Jerome & Zhuang, Jun, 2017. "Fluid approximations and control of queues in emergency departments," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(3), pages 1110-1124.
    19. Kinshuk Jerath & Anuj Kumar & Serguei Netessine, 2015. "An Information Stock Model of Customer Behavior in Multichannel Customer Support Services," Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, INFORMS, vol. 17(3), pages 368-383, July.
    20. Achal Bassamboo & Assaf Zeevi, 2009. "On a Data-Driven Method for Staffing Large Call Centers," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 57(3), pages 714-726, June.

    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:ormsom:v:14:y:2012:i:3:p:402-413. 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.