CALL CENTERS (CENTRES) - Faculty of Industrial Engineering and ...

wait condition and a smaller impact in the long-wait condition. We conclude with a discussion
of research and managerial implications.
17. Tom, Gail, Michal Burns and Yvette Zeng. Your life on hold: The effect of telephone waiting
time on customer perception, Journal of Direct Marketing, 11 (3), 1997, 25–31.
Abstract. Customer phone contact with companies is a service encounter that can turn out to
be a liability if customers perceive their time on hold as too long or unenjoyable. This paper
reports on two studies that demonstrated that different waiting conditions (silence, music, or
choice of listening alternatives) affected customer-perceived waiting time and customer perception/satisfaction
with the company.
18. Whitt, Ward. Improving service by informing customers about anticipated delays, Management
Science, 45 (2), 1999, 192–207.
Abstract. The effect upon performance in a service system, such as a telephone call center,of
giving waiting customers state information is investigated. In particular, two M/M/s/r queueing
models with balking and reneging are studied. For simplicity, it is assumed that each customer
is willing to wait a fixed time before beginning service. However, customers differ, so the delay
tolerances for successive customers are random. In model 2, all reneging is replaced by balking.
The number of customers in the system for model 1 is shown to be larger than that for model 2 in
the likelihood-ratio stochastic ordering. Thus, customers are more likely to be blocked in model
1 and are more likely to be served without waiting in model 2. Algorithms are also developed for
computing important performance measures in these, and more general, birth-and-death models.
Keywords: Telephone service, Anticipated delays, Customer service, Queueing models, Delay
tolerance, Probability, Exponential distribution, Service time, Telephone call centre, Reneging,
Balking, Birth-and-death process
(Appears also in Section I.)
19. Bennington, Lynne, James Cummane and Paul Conn. Customer satisfaction and call centers: an
Australian study, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 11 (2), 2000, 162–173.
Abstract. Call centers are growing at unprecedented rates, yet relatively little is known about
customer satisfaction with this method of service delivery. Therefore, a review of the advantages
and disadvantages of call centers is provided before reporting on a study carried out with users
of a very large human services call center network. The results indicate that customers have
slightly higher satisfaction levels with in-person services than with call center services. Although
it was predicted that older customers might be more dissatisfied with call centers than younger
customers, this was not borne out by the data. Attributes of a best-in-the-world call center
operation are provided to guide those who design and manage call center services.
Keywords: Call Centres, Customer satisfaction, Australia
(Appears also in Section VIII.)
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