Models and approximations for call center design (Q1405350)

The paper is primarily concerned with call centers serving incoming calls. It addresses optimal staffing of call centers, modeled as \(\text{M/G/}n\) queues whose offered traffic consists of multiple customer streams, each with an individual priority, arrival rate, service distribution and grade of service stated in terms of equilibrium tale waiting time probabilities or mean waiting times. The methodology is based on an analytic approximation, which maps the \(\text{M/G/}n\) queue to an approximating, suitably scaled M/G/1 queue. This approximation is then generalized to \(\text{M/G/}n\) queues with multiple types of customers and non-preemptive priorities, yielding the priority scaling-Erlang approximation.