Markov decision problems and state-action frequencies
SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization
The Markov-modulated Poisson process (MMPP) cookbook
Performance Evaluation
On Pooling in Queueing Networks
Management Science
Partitioning Customers Into Service Groups
Management Science
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
The Efficiency-Quality Trade-Off of Cross-Trained Workers
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Designing a Call Center with Impatient Customers
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Competition and Outsourcing with Scale Economies
Management Science
A Call-Routing Problem with Service-Level Constraints
Operations Research
Commissioned Paper: Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Modeling Daily Arrivals to a Telephone Call Center
Management Science
Proceedings of the 35th conference on Winter simulation: driving innovation
A Diffusion Approximation for the G/GI/n/m Queue
Operations Research
Theory, Volume 1, Queueing Systems
Theory, Volume 1, Queueing Systems
Dynamic Routing in Large-Scale Service Systems with Heterogeneous Servers
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Call Centers with Impatient Customers: Many-Server Asymptotics of the M/M/n + G Queue
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Approximating multi-skill blocking systems by hyperexponential decomposition
Performance Evaluation
Outsourcing via Service Competition
Management Science
A Staffing Algorithm for Call Centers with Skill-Based Routing
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Contact Centers with a Call-Back Option and Real-Time Delay Information
Operations Research
Call Center Outsourcing: Coordinating Staffing Level and Service Quality
Management Science
Forecast errors in service systems
Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences
Priority Assignment Under Imperfect Information on Customer Type Identities
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management
Outsourcing strategy in two-stage call centers
Computers and Operations Research
Queues with waiting time dependent service
Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications
Contact center: information systems design
Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing
Overflow Networks: Approximations and Implications to Call Center Outsourcing
Operations Research
Does the Erlang C model fit in real call centers?
Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference
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Companies may choose to outsource parts, but not all, of their call-center operations. In some cases, they classify customers as high or low value, serving the former with their in-house operations and routing the latter to an outsourcer. Typically, they impose service-level constraints on the time each type of customer waits on hold. This paper considers four schemes for routing low-value calls between the client company and the outsourcer. These schemes vary in the complexity of their routing algorithms, as well as the sophistication of the telephone and information technology infrastructure they require of the two operations. For three of these schemes, this paper provides a direct characterization of system performance. For the fourth, most complex, scheme the paper provides performance bounds for the important special case in which the service requirements of high- and low-value callers are the same. These results allow the systematic comparison of the performance of the various routing schemes. The results suggest that, for clients with large outsourcing requirements, the simpler schemes that require little client-outsourcer coordination can perform very well.