Title: A new method for estimating the real number of callers for call centre staffing optimisation

Authors: Valentina Radojicic, Goran Markovic, Vesna Radonjic

Addresses: Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. ' Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia. ' Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract: This paper deals with functional organisation of a call centre by adjusting the amount of human and technical resources such that the quality of service is satisfied while the costs of the resources are significantly reduced. If the call centre is not well designed, a great number of repeated requests occur, particularly in periods of peak traffic intensity. In such circumstances, the recorded data statistics give an unreal number of callers. This paper proposes a new method for estimating the real number of callers and the offered traffic using the general probability theory. Additionally we developed the two-level dynamic programming (DP) method for call centre staffing optimisation. Proposed method enables optimal allocation of available human resources by shifts such that the operation costs are significantly reduced.

Keywords: call centres; cost; repeated requests; shifts; caller numbers; call centre staffing; staffing optimisation; quality of service; QoS; resource allocation; human resources; probability theory; dynamic programming.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEME.2010.038648

International Journal of Engineering Management and Economics, 2010 Vol.1 No.4, pp.321 - 341

Published online: 17 Feb 2011 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article