| Study of inbound call centers has been on how the networking system characteristics delimit the behavior of the servers and the customers. Such approaches have not considered properly the autonomous decision of the customers of making service selections upon a personal need. Customers are not aware of the system dispatching or service rules; neither can they see the queues created. Customers act upon the information they received from the system based in function of their service demand. This study aims to develop an effective evaluation model for the redesign of inbound call centers systems based on customers behavior.; Concentrating in evaluating the utility of the available services, this study assesses the benefits that should be obtained by using inbound call centers for both, the customer and the organization. Thus, the study analyzes the elements interacting in inbound call centers treating them as Markov Decision Processes under a discrete time scheme and discrete state-spaces. As part of the methodology, the study assesses the call center under two perspectives. First, it analyzes the system measuring the value of the services in function of customer's demand and service utility. Simultaneously, it assesses the call center performance as a stochastic queuing system upon transition rates. Later it combines both assessment and creates an optimum policy matrix showing the maximum value a service achieves upon customer value and serving times.; Based on the values observed by each service in the policy matrix, the call center is redesigned accordingly. As a result, the expected average waiting time a given call experience before being served is reduced significantly. Consequently, the average total time a call is expected to wait in the system from the moment it access the call centers until the service needed is obtained, is also reduced. Thus, the overall benefits obtained are reflected in a better call center performance. |
