New Project Staffing for Outsourced Call Centers with Global Service Level Agreements

Thomas R. Robbins () and Terry P. Harrison ()
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Thomas R. Robbins: Department of Marketing and Supply Chain, College of Business, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858
Terry P. Harrison: Dept. of Supply chain and Information Systems, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802

Service Science, 2011, vol. 3, issue 1, 41-66

Abstract: We consider the issue of new project staffing in an outsourced call center required to meet a monthly Service Level Agreement (SLA). We present empirical analysis generated during a field study with a provider of outsourced call center services to illustrate the unique issues related to staffing a new project. Our work shows that during the start-up phase of a project agents experience significant improvements in productivity that reduce the staffing requirements over time. We also find that turnover, which is typically high in a call center environment, may be even higher for a project launch dominated by newly hired agents. These factors interact with the uncertainty of call volumes and talk time to create a difficult hiring challenge. We develop a model that finds the level of hiring with the lowest total expected cost of operation while meeting service level commitments. [ Service Science , ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]

Keywords: call centers; service operations scheduling; stochastic programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orserv:v:3:y:2011:i:1:p:41-66

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