• DocumentCode
    764056
  • Title

    A queueing model for call blending in call centers

  • Author

    Bhulai, Sandjai ; Koole, Ger

  • Author_Institution
    Lucent Technol. Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA
  • Volume
    48
  • Issue
    8
  • fYear
    2003
  • Firstpage
    1434
  • Lastpage
    1438
  • Abstract
    Call centers that apply call blending obtain high-productivity and high-service levels by dynamically mixing inbound and outbound traffic. We show that agents should be assigned to outbound calls if the number of available agents exceeds a certain threshold. This control policy is optimal for equal service time distributions and a very good approximation otherwise.
  • Keywords
    Markov processes; call centres; decision theory; dynamic programming; queueing theory; stochastic processes; call blending; call centers; equal service time distributions; high-productivity; high-service levels; inbound traffic; outbound traffic; queueing model; Delay; Optimal control; Productivity; Throughput; Time factors; Traffic control;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0018-9286
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/TAC.2003.815038
  • Filename
    1220762