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Staffing Call Centers with Impatient Customers: Refinements to Many-Server Asymptotics

Author

Listed:
  • Bo Zhang

    (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598)

  • Johan S. H. van Leeuwaarden

    (Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands)

  • Bert Zwart

    (CWI, PNA2, Amsterdam, 1098 XG, The Netherlands)

Abstract

In call centers it is crucial to staff the right number of agents so that the targeted service levels are met. These staffing problems typically lead to constraint satisfaction problems that are hard to solve. During the last decade, a beautiful many-server asymptotic theory has been developed to solve such problems for large call centers, and optimal staffing rules are known to obey the square-root staffing principle. This paper presents refinements to many-server asymptotics and this staffing principle for a Markovian queueing model with impatient customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Bo Zhang & Johan S. H. van Leeuwaarden & Bert Zwart, 2012. "Staffing Call Centers with Impatient Customers: Refinements to Many-Server Asymptotics," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(2), pages 461-474, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:oropre:v:60:y:2012:i:2:p:461-474
    DOI: 10.1287/opre.1110.1016
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Avishai Mandelbaum & Petar Momčilović, 2012. "Queues with Many Servers and Impatient Customers," Mathematics of Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 41-65, February.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Ramandeep S. Randhawa, 2016. "Optimality gap of asymptotically derived prescriptions in queueing systems," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 83(1), pages 131-155, June.
    4. Britt Mathijsen & Bert Zwart, 2017. "Transient error approximation in a Lévy queue," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 85(3), pages 269-304, April.
    5. Heemskerk, M. & Mandjes, M. & Mathijsen, B., 2022. "Staffing for many-server systems facing non-standard arrival processes," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 296(3), pages 900-913.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Avishai Mandelbaum & Petar Momčilović & Yulia Tseytlin, 2012. "On Fair Routing from Emergency Departments to Hospital Wards: QED Queues with Heterogeneous Servers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(7), pages 1273-1291, July.

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