Facility determination for a call center : a case study for a bank

Abstract

By using the interactive voice response (IVR) systems, the amount and frequency of using call service tend to increase significantly. Nowadays, there are more than 400,000 incoming calls per month. If the bank determines to locate the facilities more than the demand of the incoming calls that causes the customer satisfaction, but it has to hold the high operating cost. In the other hand, it the bank determine to locate the facilities less than the demand of the incoming calls that cause the bank hold the low operating cost, but this determination also cause the customer dissatisfaction and the negative effect with bank reputation. Thus, to survive in this business, it is very necessary to determine the appropriate facilities for the call center. The mentioned facilities in this case are: the number of telephone lines, IVR ports, and the number of bank representative (agent). The main tool for determining the suitable facilities is the simulation model, developed by simulation package software called ARENA. The determination is related to the bank benchmarks and management policy, which are: the percentage of incoming calls that success to enter the call center system as well as the average waiting time before receiving the service from IVR and agents. After running the simulation model, we found that the suitable number of telephone line, IVR port, and agent is equal to 100, 90, and 28, respectively. Running the simulation model by using these previously mentioned facilities, the success call percentage equals to 88.3%, the average waiting time before receiving the service from IVR equals to 0.07 seconds, and the average waiting time before receiving the service from agent equals to 7.9 seconds. The rough budget for facility incrementing is about 2,580,000 Bahts and the supplementary cost is equal to 124,500 Bahts per month