IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/uiiexx/v41y2009i6p546-561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pooling strategies for call center agent cross-training

Author

Listed:
  • Eylem Tekin
  • Wallace Hopp
  • Mark Van Oyen

Abstract

The efficiency benefits achievable via cross-training in call and service center environments where agents serve distinct customer types are investigated. This is achieved by first considering specialized agents grouped into N departments according to the customer type they serve. Then, cross-training policies that pool a set of departments into a single larger department that serves all of the pooled call types according to either a first-come-first-served or non-pre-emptive priority service discipline are examined. The impact of system parameters, such as the number of servers, mean service times and service time coefficient of variation, on the decision of which departments to pool in order to minimize the expected delay in the system are characterized by comparing the proposed queueing models via standard queueing approximations and numerical analysis. The results show that if the mean service times of the departments that will be pooled are similar, pooling the departments with the highest service time coefficient of variation reduces the expected delay the most. Sufficient conditions for the mean service times to be considered similar are also provided.[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of IIE Transactions for the following supplemental resource: Appendix of proofs for all results developed in the paper]

Suggested Citation

  • Eylem Tekin & Wallace Hopp & Mark Van Oyen, 2009. "Pooling strategies for call center agent cross-training," IISE Transactions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(6), pages 546-561.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:uiiexx:v:41:y:2009:i:6:p:546-561
    DOI: 10.1080/07408170802512586
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07408170802512586
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/07408170802512586?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hans Corsten & Ferdinand Becker & Hagen Salewski, 2020. "Integrating truck and workforce scheduling in a cross-dock: analysis of different workforce coordination policies," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(2), pages 207-237, March.
    2. Dipankar Bose & A. K. Chatterjee, 2015. "Specialized versus Multi-skilled Workforce: A Newsboy Approach for Call Centre Resource Planning," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 40(3-4), pages 252-267, August.
    3. Zhou, Liping & Geng, Na & Jiang, Zhibin & Wang, Xiuxian, 2017. "Combining revenue and equity in capacity allocation of imaging facilities," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 256(2), pages 619-628.
    4. Legros, Benjamin & Jouini, Oualid & Dallery, Yves, 2015. "A flexible architecture for call centers with skill-based routing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 192-207.
    5. Tanja Mlinar & Philippe Chevalier, 2016. "Pooling heterogeneous products for manufacturing environments," 4OR, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 173-200, June.
    6. Nilay Tanık Argon & Sigrún Andradóttir, 2017. "Pooling in tandem queueing networks with non-collaborative servers," Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 87(3), pages 345-377, December.
    7. E. Morozov & B. Steyaert, 2013. "Stability analysis of a two-station cascade queueing network," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 202(1), pages 135-160, January.
    8. Arie Harel, 2011. "Convexity Results for the Erlang Delay and Loss Formulae When the Server Utilization Is Held Constant," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 59(6), pages 1420-1426, December.
    9. 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.
    10. Soroush Saghafian & Wallace J. Hopp & Mark P. Van Oyen & Jeffrey S. Desmond & Steven L. Kronick, 2012. "Patient Streaming as a Mechanism for Improving Responsiveness in Emergency Departments," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 60(5), pages 1080-1097, October.
    11. MLINAR, Tanja B. & CHEVALIER, Philippe, 2013. "Pooling in manufacturing: do opposites attract?," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2013040, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:uiiexx:v:41:y:2009:i:6:p:546-561. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/uiie .

    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.