Telephone Call Centers: Tutorial, Review, and Research Prospects

Noah Gans, Ger Koole, Avishai Mandelbaum
2003 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management  
Telephone call centers are an integral part of many businesses, and their economic role is significant and growing. They are also fascinating socio-technical 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
more » ... s. 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.
doi:10.1287/msom.5.2.79.16071 fatcat:ggsjiwnoyndeba7m6m5bgaw6va