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Understanding Contact Center Agents’ Preferences for Selecting Calls to Work

Sean Yarborough
Patrick T. Hester

Applications of Management Science

ISBN: 978-1-78441-211-1, eISBN: 978-1-78441-210-4

ISSN: 0276-8976

Publication date: 3 February 2015

Abstract

A discussion of call center agent work selection preferences is presented in the context of what is referred to herein as the accept–avoid decision. In call centers where agents are given autonomy to select calls from a shared queue for work without a standard routing mechanism, it is likely that each agent uses a different set of criteria and has different preferences which influence their decision to accept a call or avoid it. In order to understand such preferences, simple heuristics are developed and implemented into an additive linear model as an example to estimate the derived utility an agent may receive from the decision to accept a call. The game theoretic implications of such decision making by a group or team of agents are also discussed to illustrate the dilemma of the universally avoided call, and how agents may compete for acceptance or avoidance of particular calls.

Keywords

  • Preference-based routing
  • Contact centers
  • Work selection
  • Worker preferences

Citation

Yarborough, S. and Hester, P. (2015), "Understanding Contact Center Agents’ Preferences for Selecting Calls to Work", Applications of Management Science (Applications of Management Science, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 71-93. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0276-897620140000017004

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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