Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects

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Operations, Information and Decisions Papers
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telephone call center
contact center
teleservices
telequeues
capacity management
staffing
hiring
workforce management systems
ACD reports
queueing
abandonment
Erlang C
Erlang B
Erlang A
QED regime
time-varying queues
call routing
skills-based routing
forecasting
data mining
Business Administration, Management, and Operations
Growth and Development
Human Resources Management
Operations and Supply Chain Management
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Gans, Noah
Koole, Ger
Mandelbaum, Avishai
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Abstract

Telephone call centers are an integral part of many businesses, and their economic role is significant and growing. They are also fascinating sociotechnical systems in which the behavior of customers and employees is closely intertwined with physical performance measures. In these environments traditional operational models are of great value—and at the same time fundamentally limited—in their ability to characterize system performance. We review the state of research on telephone call centers. We begin with a tutorial on how call centers function and proceed to survey academic research devoted to the management of their operations. We then outline important problems that have not been addressed and identify promising directions for future research.

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2003-01-01
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manufacturing & Service Operations Management
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