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

Bo Zhang (), Johan S. H. van Leeuwaarden () and Bert Zwart ()
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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

Operations Research, 2012, vol. 60, issue 2, 461-474

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.

Keywords: call centers; impatient customers; square-root staffing; quality-and-efficiency-driven regime; Erlang A queueing model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:oropre:v:60:y:2012:i:2:p:461-474

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