A decision support system for workforce management in call centers

Abstract

Shift design, workforce allocation and call allocation are the major problems in call center management. The aim of the call center manager is to allocate and dynamically update the workforce so that the incoming calls are answered in the shortest possible time, above certain service level measures. The software tools developed to aid decision making in these areas use models that are based on Erlang-C calculations. However, the strict assumptions of Erlang-C often lead to invaliddecisions. For this reason, especially at peak times during the day, dynamic updates in the applied design are inev itable. In this study, a framework for a decision supportsystem (DSS) is developed for designing the shifts and allocating the agent workforce to the shifts in a call center, so that target service levels are met. In theproposed system, shifts are designed by solving a linear optimization model. Using this solution as the input, a simulation model is developed to dynamically update theworkforce so that the minimum required service level is met at all times. The proposed DSS is applied to an existing call center system, alternative designs aregenerated and compared.