Dynamic Routing Policies for Multi-Skill Call Centers Using Deep Q Network

Abstract

When the call center queuing system becomes complex, it turns out that the static routing policy is not optimal. This paper considers the problem of the dynamic routing policy for call centers with multiple skill types and agent groups. A state-dependent routing policy based on the Deep Q Network (DQN) is proposed, and a reinforcement learning algorithm is applied to optimize the routing. A simulation algorithm is designed to help customers and agents interact with the external environment to learn the optimal strategy. The performance evaluation considered in this paper is the service level/abandon rate. Experiments show that the DQN-based dynamic routing policy performs better than the common static policy Global First Come First Serve (FCFS) and the dynamic policy Priorities with Idle Agent Thresholds and Weight-Based Routing in various examples. On the other hand, the training time of the routing policy model based on the DQN is much faster than routing optimization based on simulation and a genetic algorithm.