Forecast evaluation in call centers: combined forecasts, flexible loss functions and economic criteria

Andrea Bastianin, Marzio Galeotti and Matteo Manera ()

Departmental Working Papers from Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract: Accurate forecasts of incoming calls are crucial to optimal staffing decisions in call centers. This paper evaluates a wide range of models and forecast combination techniques by means of statistical and economic criteria. Relative to the previous literature, this paper is novel in several respects. In particular, the statistical evaluation of competing models is carried out by using a flexible loss function as input to pairwise and joint forecast diagnostic checks. Informative rankings across alternative single models and different groups of models are obtained. Moreover, models are evaluated from the perspective of a manager, who needs reliable forecasts to dimension the call center. Money metrics of forecasting performance are computed, which are based on the economic value of information and the certainty equivalent.

Keywords: Combining forecasts; Decision making; Loss function; Seasonality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03-21
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://wp.demm.unimi.it/files/wp/2011/DEMM-2011_008wp.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to aaa.unimi.it:80 (nodename nor servname provided, or not known) (http://wp.demm.unimi.it/files/wp/2011/DEMM-2011_008wp.pdf [302 Found]--> http://aaa.unimi.it)

Related works:
Working Paper: Statistical and Economic Evaluation of Time Series Models for Forecasting Arrivals at Call Centers (2016)
Working Paper: Forecast Evaluation in Call Centers: Combined Forecasts, Flexible Loss Functions and Economic Criteria (2011)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mil:wpdepa:2011-08

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Departmental Working Papers from Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano Via Conservatorio 7, I-20122 Milan - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by DEMM Working Papers ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).