Improving Customer Service Operations at Amazon.com

Matthew F. Keblis () and Maomao Chen ()
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Matthew F. Keblis: Mays Business School, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843
Maomao Chen: Amazon.com, 605 5th Avenue South, Seattle, Washington 98104

Interfaces, 2006, vol. 36, issue 5, 433-445

Abstract: The success of the Internet retailer Amazon.com depends on its providing high-quality customer service. Amazon.com’s customer service operations consist of internally and externally managed contact centers. Amazon.com must size its contact centers appropriately, deciding about hiring and training at internally managed centers, and the volume of voice calls and e-mail messages to allocate to external service providers. We developed an approach based on mathematical programming that Amazon.com uses in planning capacity, reducing the average cost of handling a customer contact, and increasing the service level provided customers.

Keywords: organizational studies; manpower planning; programming; integer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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