Call Center Operators Research Articles

Bayesian analysis of queues with impatient customers: Applications to call centers

AbstractQueuing models have been extensively used in the literature for obtaining performance measures and developing staffing policies. However, most of this work has been from a pure probabilistic point of view and has not addressed issues of statistical inference. In this article, we consider Bayesian queuing models with impatient customers with particular emphasis on call center operations and discuss further extensions. We develop the details of Bayesian inference for queues with abandonment such as the M/M/s + M model (Erlang‐A). In doing so, we discuss the estimation of operating characteristics and its implications on staffing. We illustrate the implementation of the Bayesian models using actual arrival, service, and abandonment data from call centers. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2012

My, Your or Our Employees? Co-Management of Human Resources in Outsourced Call Center Operations

While the externalization of work has grown considerably, human resource scholars typically focus on subjects whose job is defined by and performed at the same organization they are contractually related to. Distinguishing between primary firms and 'de jure' employers, I explore the implications for HRM in outsourced work arrangements. Analyzing four outsourced call center operations at a single BPO firm in Argentina, I analyze how primary firms interact with the BPO firm in order to shape their externalized workforces. Contrary to monitoring and control approaches to outsourced work arrangements, as suggested by transaction cost economics or the resource based view, I found that the primary firms were actively involved in the ongoing management of their outsourced call center operations. Moreover, each of the primary firms used a different approach to co-managing human resources, which translated into different performance outcomes. These findings suggest that strategic human resource management scholars need to develop theory that accounts for inter-firm interactions that condition HRM, provides an understanding of why primary firms use different approaches to co-management, and why such differences lead to different performance outcomes.

Variation between seated and standing/walking postures among male and female call centre operators

BackgroundThe dose and time-pattern of sitting has been suggested in public health research to be an important determinant of risk for developing a number of diseases, including cardiovascular disorders and diabetes. The aim of the present study was to assess the time-pattern of seated and standing/walking postures amongst male and female call centre operators, on the basis of whole-shift posture recordings, analysed and described by a number of novel variables describing posture variation.MethodsSeated vs. standing/walking was recorded using dichotomous inclinometers throughout an entire work shift for 43 male and 97 female call centre operators at 16 call centres. Data were analysed using an extensive set of variables describing occurrence of and switches between seated and standing/walking, posture similarity across the day, and compliance with standard recommendations for computer work.ResultsThe majority of the operators, both male and female, spent more than 80% of the shift in a seated posture with an average of 10.4 switches/hour between seated and standing/walking or vice versa. Females spent, on average, 11% of the day in periods of sustained sitting longer than 1 hour; males 4.6% (p = 0.013). Only 38% and 11% of the operators complied with standard recommendations of getting an uninterrupted break from seated posture of at least 5 or 10 minutes, respectively, within each hour of work. Two thirds of all investigated variables showed coefficients of variation between subjects above 0.5. Since work tasks and contractual break schedules were observed to be essentially similar across operators and across days, this indicates that sedentary behaviours differed substantially between individuals.ConclusionsThe extensive occurrence of uninterrupted seated work indicates that efforts should be made at call centres - and probably in other settings in the office sector - to introduce more physical variation in terms of standing/walking periods during the work day. We suggest the metrics used in this study for quantifying variation in sedentary behaviour to be of interest even for other dichotomous exposures relevant to occupational and public health, for instance physical activity/inactivity.

Many-server queues with customer abandonment: A survey of diffusion and fluid approximations

The performance of a call center is sensitive to customer abandonment. In this survey paper, we focus on G / GI / n + GI parallel-server queues that serve as a building block to model call center operations. Such a queue has a general arrival process (the G), independent and identically distributed (iid) service times with a general distribution (the first GI), and iid patience times with a general distribution (the +GI). Following the square-root safety staffing rule, this queue can be operated in the quality- and efficiency-driven (QED) regime, which is characterized by large customer volume, the waiting times being a fraction of the service times, only a small fraction of customers abandoning the system, and high server utilization. Operational efficiency is the central target in a system whose staffing costs dominate other expenses. If a moderate fraction of customer abandonment is allowed, such a system should be operated in an overloaded regime known as the efficiency-driven (ED) regime. We survey recent results on the many-server queues that are operated in the QED and ED regimes. These results include the performance insensitivity to patience time distributions and diffusion and fluid approximate models as practical tools for performance analysis.

Training opportunities and employee exhaustion in call centres: mediation by psychological contract fulfilment

The aim of this study is to analyse psychological contract fulfilment as a mechanism through which training affects stress in call centres. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 412 call centre operators, using structural equation modelling to analyse their survey responses. Our results demonstrated that training is negatively related to workers' exhaustion and that the relationship is fully mediated by the fulfilment of socio‐emotional obligations. We found that it was the fulfilment of balanced obligations, and not relational obligations, which mediated the relationship between training and exhaustion. Hence, we verified that training was related to lower levels of employee exhaustion through fulfilment of the balanced psychological contract. Our findings highlight the centrality of psychological contract fulfilment to call centre workers, and the importance of training in constructing positive employment relationships with workers. We discuss implications for human resource management in call centres.

Need for recovery assessment among nursing professionals and call center operators

The present study descriptively compares the need for recovery (NFR) among 128 nursing professionals (nurses) and 223 call center operators according cutoff points in the literature (45 and 50) and by means of statistical tests, and verifies the association between NFR scores and the presence of musculoskeletal symptoms. NFR was evaluated with the Need for Recovery Scale and musculoskeletal symptoms were evaluated with the Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire. At a 45 point cutoff, 22% of the call-center workers and 33% of the nurses were classified as fatigued; at a 50 point cutoff, 13% of the call center operators and 27% of the nurses were classified as fatigued. The nurses had higher fatigue levels than the call center workers (p=0.015). Significant correlations were found between NFR scores and musculoskeletal symptoms reported during the previous 12 months (r=0.299, p<0.001) and 7 days (r=0.314, p<0.001). Regarding cutoff points and statistical tests, the NFR scale identified higher fatigue levels among the nurses and was demonstrated to be a useful tool for evaluating worker well-being.

Transforming trauma healthcare delivery in rural areas by use of an integrated call center

Introduction:There is poor penetration of trauma healthcare delivery in rural areas. On the other hand, mobile penetration in India is now averaging 80% with most families having access to mobile phone.Aims and Objectives:The aim of this study was to assess the implementation and socioeconomic impact of a call center in providing healthcare delivery for patients with head and spinal injuries.Materials and Methods:This was a prospective observational study carried out over a 6-month period at a level I trauma Center in New Delhi, India. A nine-seater call center was outsourced to a private company and the hospital's electronic medical records were integrated with the call-center operations. The call center was given responsibility of maintaining appointments and scheduling clinics for the whole hospital as well as ensuring follow-up visits. Trained call-center staff handled simple patient queries and referred the rest via email to concerned doctors. A telephonic survey was done prior to the start of call-center operations and after 3 months to assess for user satisfaction.Results:The initial cost of outsourcing the call center was Rs 1.6 lakhs (US$ 4000), with a recurring cost of Rs 80,000 (US$ 2000) per month. A total of 484 patients were admitted in the department of Neurosurgery during the study period. Of these, 63% (n=305) were from rural areas. Patients’ overall experience for clinic visits improved markedly following implementation of call center. Patient satisfaction for follow-up visits increased from a mean of 32-96%. Ninety-five percent patients reported a significant decrease in waiting time in clinics 80.4% reporting improved doctor-patient interaction. A total of 52 visits could be postponed/cancelled for patients living in far flung areas resulting in major socioeconomic benefits to these families.Conclusions:As shown by our case study, call centers have the potential to revolutionize delivery of trauma healthcare to rural areas in an extremely cost-effective manner.

Call center operation model as a MAP/PH/N/R−N system with impatient customers

We analyze a multiserver queueing system with a finite buffer and impatient customers. The arrival customer flow is assumed to be Markovian. Service times of each server are phase-type distributed. If all servers are busy and a new arrival occurs, it enters the buffer with a probability depending on the total number of customers in the system and waits for service, or leaves the system with the complementary probability. A waiting customer may become impatient and abandon the system. We give an algorithm for finding the stationary distribution of system states and derive formulas for basic performance characteristics. We find Laplace-Stieltjes transforms for sojourn and waiting times. Numeric examples are given.

Psychosocial Aspects of the Work of Female Call Center Operators in a Bank of São Paulo, Brazil

Psychosocial Aspects of the Work of Female Call Center Operators in a Bank of São Paulo, Brazil

음향도구 착용 근로자의 소음노출 실태에 관한 연구

There are hundreds of thousands call center workers wearing acoustic device. However, researches and noise exposure measurements on the noise transmitted from acoustic devices have seldom been performed due to the difficulty of measurement and to the absence of the measuring method in Korea. The aim of this study is to set up management measures to protect hearing loss on the call operator by acquiring measurement data of noise transmitted from the headset. Noise exposure measurements of 17 operators were performed in 7 call centers and head and Torso simulator method in compliance with the ISO standard 11904-2 was used for the measurement of noise transmitted from the headset. Sound pressure levels(SPL) transmitted from the headset were 73.2~86 dB(A). The operator exposed to the highest SPL set up his volume control at 9 which was the highest volume level. The volume control level, adjustable from 1 to 9, could be identified 12 out of 17 operators and the range of volume levels was 4.5~9. As a result of pearson correlation analysis, the correlation between volume level and SPL transmitted from the headset showed high relation as significance at the 0.672 level(p<0.05). To protect hearing loss of call center operators, it is more practical and effective measure to limit the volume level below the noise exposure level, i.e. 85 dB(A), rather than to carry out noise monitoring considering cost-effective aspect.

DSS for Health Emergency Response

This paper presents the design approach and architecture of a Decision Support System (DSS) for the Hellenic Centre for Emergency Health Care (EKAB, http://www.ekab.gr). The DSS supports the cooperation and decision-making processes at the EKAB call centre concerning the effective activation and allocation of appropriate resources mainly: ambulances, healthcare personnel and other public emergency resources like fire fighting and police. The DSS is a geographic web-based mash-up that builds on top of existing information systems and databases, and collects, aggregates, records, and presents various types of dynamic information about medical incidents in real time, promoting evidence-based medicine. The system provides a number of user interfaces (web-based and mobile) for call centre operators, radio centre operators, ambulance personnel, and administration. A contextual approach was necessary for the design of the system based on various related methods. Field observation of the current ways of work at EKAB sites, design, and development of data resources and user interfaces were conducted.

Optimization of Multi-skill Call Centers Contracts and Work-shifts

Call centers are complex systems in which it is essential to optimize the trade-off between the service level provided to the customers and the cost for the personnel. In this paper we describe a quantitative approach to choose the most suitable contracts to hire the call center operators. The aim is to organize their work-shifts and their rest periods, including lunch-breaks, in such a way that the mix of skills obtained in each time slot is as close as possible to a desired level, estimated according to demand forecasts. The approach here proposed is based on a heuristic method which exploits a general purpose linear programming solver. [Service Science, ISSN 2164-3962 (print), ISSN 2164-3970 (online), was published by Services Science Global (SSG) from 2009 to 2011 as issues under ISBN 978-1-4276-2090-3.]

Linguistic aspects in asymmetrical institutional interaction: Call center case

In institutional communications, the roles of participants were determined by institutional frame, and distribution of interactional power was asymmetrical. This work investigates by a case study if interaction between the call center operators and clients can have asymmetrical features. Turn taking organization, overall structural organization of the interaction, sequence organization, turn design, lexical choice, epistemological and other forms of asymmetry were considered. Interruption, enforcing explicitness, controlling topic and formulation were marked in analyzed interactions for instrumental achieving of domination.

Organizational climate and burnout in call-center operators

In this study, we tried to investigate the relationships between dimensions of organizational climate and the burnout syndrome in the call center. The MBI Maslach Burnout Inventory and the “Questionnaire for the Analysis of Organizational Climate” were administered to 114 call center operators. A context emerged from the data that just enough of the quality of organizational climate, high levels of burnout, and dissatisfaction is shown. The study of correlations between the observed variables can identify the strategic factors to define programs for the prevention of psychosocial risks and promoting individual and organizational welfare.

A comparison of competing structural models in call centres: prospects for value creation

This paper presents a comparative study of two service system designs, i.e., mechanistic and organic, in a public sector call centre environment. It explores the impact of each of these service designs on employees’ affective commitment and on service performance. Thirty-nine interviews were conducted in mechanistic call centre and 16 in organic call centre. A nine-item organisational commitment questionnaire was also administered among employees in both places to measure affective commitment levels. The comparison revealed significant improvement in employees’ affective commitment level using systems thinking design to create an organic structure when contrasted with employees working under mechanistic structure design. Further, systems thinking has been found of particular benefit to the service performance in terms of departmental communication enhancement and service waste minimisation. The value of this paper is the identification of alternative service design models applied to call centre operations that will leverage employees’ affective commitment to improve service performance and enhance customer loyalty.

Practical scheduling for call center operations

A practical spreadsheet-based scheduling method is developed to determine the optimal allocation of service agents to candidate tour types and start times in an inbound call center. A stationary Markovian queueing model with customer abandonment is employed to determine required staffing levels for a sequence of time intervals with varying call volumes, handling times, and relative agent availabilities. These staffing requirements populate a quadratic programming model for determining the distribution of agent tours that will maximize the fraction of offered calls beginning service within a target response time, subject to side constraints on tour type quantities. The optimal distribution is scaled to reflect the total number of scheduled agents, and a near-optimal integer solution is derived using rounding thresholds found by successive one-dimensional searches. This novel approach has been successfully implemented in large service centers at Qwest Communications and could easily be adapted to other operational environments.

Understanding management control systems in call centers

PurposeThe present paper attempts to integrate three streams of alternative approaches to provide a contingency‐based framework to understand the management control systems (MCS) that are operating in call centers. Specifically, the paper's aim is to analyse the work practices of call center employees from three different lenses: the radical approach using Braverman's labor process theory; the Foucauldian approach, which explains the governance of the self; and the naturalistic approach, which explains the governance of the built environment.Design/methodology/approachThe data for the case study were collected by conducting interviews. The data were gathered to identify if the work experience of the call center operators reflects the Tayloristic principles of scientific management, whether their responses reflect evidence of internalizing norms and adjusting their selves to fit to the norm, and lastly whether their work conditions are shaped in the manner described above to facilitate control of their work lives.FindingsPrior academic studies have relied on either one of the approaches and the author's contention is that neither of the theories in isolation can explain the complexities that characterize the contemporary call center operator's labor process.Research limitations/implicationsThe study of control and its resistance can add to the understanding of the modern workplace. Since the call center environment is unique, the results of this study may have limited generalizability.Practical implicationsFuture researchers can extend the approach used in this research to areas other than call centers that may have similar overlapping paradigms. Such an endeavor will enrich the understanding of complex phenomena, where multiple theories may be espoused to explain a particular research question.Originality/valueA significant contribution of this study is to recognize that there is concentration of limited control and power in the hands of those who are controlled. Such an understanding may revive the “emancipatory tradition” of labour process theory and though it may not lead to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, it may lead to the awareness that strategies aimed at improving the lives of workers within the capitalist political economy are desirable.

Cigarette smoking in young-adult workers: a cross-sectional analysis from Abruzzo, Italy

Background: The “Valentino” cross-sectional study is aimed at evaluating the prevalence and pattern ofcigarette smoking according to occupational group in a representative sample of workers aged 18-35 yearsfrom Abruzzo, Italy.Methods: Randomly selected workers anonymously self-compiled a structured questionnaire containingvalidated items. Job type was coded according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations.Results: The sample consisted of 3989 workers. Current smoking prevalence was 45.9%, varying acrossoccupational groups and ranged from 37.2% among clerical support workers, up to 57.1% among craft,agricultural and fishery sector workers. After controlling for several potential confounders using logisticregression, craft, agricultural, forestry and fishery workers (adjusted odds ratio 1.65; 95% confidence intervals1.21-2.27), and call-center operators (1.91; 1.44-2.53) were significantly more likely to be current smokers thanprofessionals and clerical or support workers. Interestingly, when alcohol and cannabis use were included inmultivariate analysis, the association between smoking and gender was no longer significant.Conclusions: An independent association was found between specific occupational classes and tobaccosmoking, suggesting occupation type should be considered in prioritizing subsets of populations towardswhich smoking cessation campaigns should be targeted first.

Call Centres As Sites of Professional Practice: “Where Old Social Workers Go to Die”?

The use of call centre operations in public and private sectors is a notable development in the changing structure and nature of employment worldwide. This trend is clearly evident in the South Pacific with the establishment of a call centre as the official point of entry for the statutory child protection systems in both New Zealand and New South Wales. As sites of professional practice however call centres are a controversial development. This paper discusses the practice findings of a qualitative research project which explored the particularity of intake social work (ISW) with 14 social workers employed at the Child Youth and Families' (CYF) National Contact Centre (NCC) in New Zealand. Findings were established through semi structured interviews and thematic analysis. They reveal a unique practice combining attributes of social work and emergency communication services in a workplace environment subject to similar output requirements as those found in commercial call centres.

A simplified lean method to capture customer voice

PurposeThis paper tested a model to collect the voice of the customer to improve service delivery in call centers using the concept of failure demand. Customer responses are quantified for improvement in service delivery. There are many academic studies reporting effective and validated research methodologies to measure service quality. However, these methods are complex and unwieldy. The purpose of this paper is to adapt the lean service concept of working from the customer's viewpoint – to measure, then improve customer satisfaction, and thereby reduce costs.Design/methodology/approachA checklist of best practices for call centers was developed from the literature and multiple iterations used to develop a three part call evaluation system to include value demand, failure demand, not able to determine, and value demand as stated by the customer.FindingsThe findings indicated that the value/failure demand measurement system was useful and many failure demand occurrences occurred.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper is limited to service providers in call centers and their managers. Call center operators logged customer perceptions so it has the potential to lack objectivity.Practical implicationsService providers need simple tools to assess operations, improve quality, and efficiency. This paper will assist in the development of an easy‐to‐use and generic tool for the continuous improvement of services.Originality/valueThe paper is one of very few studies that use the actual customer voice to measure failure demand and call centers can apply this process.