Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Call centres form an increasingly important part of the modern day business environment and perform an important role in the strategic and operational aspects of organisations. Call centres have emerged and developed to provide efficient and cost effective communication channels between organisations and their customers. Call centres are often the largest or only channel used to access customers or for customers to access organisations. Early call centres were seen as cost centres and operated in a similar manner, often resulting in poor and unsatisfactory performance. Modern call centres are being approached in a different way. They are aligned with the strategic objectives of the organisation and are seen as performance centres and revenue drivers. Modern call centres are dynamic and complex organisations, both technologically and operationally. Performance objectives are often conflicting and controlling parameters have to be finely balanced in a volatile environment. It is therefore imperative to utilise call centres effectively and efficiently. This can only be achieved by a structured and scientific operations research based approach. The research was initiated by the requirement of a call centre design and implementation as part of a larger business process reengineering project. The thesis provides an overview of the call centre environment and operational aspects. A structured call centre design model is reviewed and two aspects namely workforce management and performance management are found to form the core of the design and operations activities. The call centre design model is then integrated with the proposed workforce management and performance management models. These models are developed using scientific operations research approach. The structured modelling approach is then used to guide the design, operation, and optimisation of the call centre of the case study. The structured and scientific operations research based approach proved to be of great significance when confronted with the dynamic and complex call centre environment. Through using the structured approach the design, operation, and optimisation activities could be conducted successfully and performance objectives were reached.

Thesis (MComm)--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between burnout, emotional labour (EL) and emotional intelligence (EI) in the call centre industry and to determine whether EI played a moderating role in the relationship between EL and burnout. A nonexperimental research design (i.e. exploratory survey study) was used to explore the relationships between the three constructs. The constructs were defined as follows: burnout, as a syndrome consisting of three negative response patterns which include: emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and diminished personal accomplishment (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996); EI, as the capacity to effectively perceive, express, understand and manage emotions in a professional and effective manner at work (Palmer & Stough, 2001); and EL, as the process where employees regulate their emotional display in an attempt to meet organisationally-based expectations specific to their roles (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003). A convenience sample of 250 employees was drawn from two inbound customer care call centres of a leading South African telecommunications company that was approached to participate in the research. The Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (Maslach et al., 1996), the Emotional Labour Scale (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003) and the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (Palmer & Stough, 2001) were administered. Two hundred and ten (210) respondents completed and returned the questionnaires. The results showed that surface acting (a dimension of EL) was positively related to and predicted emotional exhaustion (i.e. increased burnout). Conversely, deep acting (a dimension of EL) was related to an increase in personal accomplishment scores (i.e. decreased burnout). As hypothesised, EI was found to relate negatively to surface acting and positively to deep acting and emerged as a strong predictor of deep acting, explaining 20% of the variance in deep acing scores. These results revealed that those individuals higher in EI were more likely to engage more often in deep acting techniques, which could likely influence their levels of burnout. Furthermore, EI was related to an increase in personal accomplishment (i.e. decreased burnout) and emotional management (a dimension of EI) emerged as the strongest predictor of increased personal accomplishment. Whilst EI did not emerge as a moderator in the relationship between EL and burnout, support was found for the value of developing EI interventions that foster deep acting techniques in the call centre environment. Tenure (length of service) was found to be positively related to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to deep acting, indicating that the implementation of EI interventions in call centres should not be restricted to the induction phase of an employee’s career but continue throughout their working lives. The limitations of the study and recommendations for future research were discussed. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doel van hierdie studie was om die verwantskap tussen uitbranding, emosionele arbeid (EA) en emosionele intelligensie (EI) in die inbelsentrum bedryf te ondersoek en om te bepaal of EI ‘n modererende effek op die EA en uitbranding verwantskap het. Daar is gebruik gemaak van ‘n nie-eksperimentele navorsingsontwerp (nl. ‘n verkennende opnamestudie) ten einde die verband tussen die drie konstrukte en hul sub-dimensies te ondersoek. Die konstrukte is soos volg gedefinieer: uitbranding, as ‘n sindroom bestaande uit drie negatiewe respons komponente: emosionele uitputting, depersonalisasie en verminderde gevoel van persoonlike bekwaamheid (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996); EI, as die individu se kapasiteit om emosies binne die werksomgewing effektief waar te neem, uit te druk, te verstaan en op ‘n professionele en effektiewe wyse te bestuur (Palmer & Stough, 2001); en EA, as die proses waardeur werknemers hulle eksterne, sigbare emosies reguleer in ‘n poging om aan die verwagte vertoon reëls van hul organisasie (spesifiek tot hulle werksrol) te voldoen (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003). ‘n Gerieflikheidsteekproef van 250 werknemers verbonde aan twee inbelkliëntedienssentrums van ‘n toonaangewende Suid Afrikaanse telekommunikasie maatskappy was genader om aan die navorsing deel te neem. Die respondente het drie vraelyste voltooi: die Maslach Uitbrandingsvraelys – Algemene Opname (Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey) (Maslach et al., 1996); die Emosionele Arbeid Skaal (Emotional Labour Scale) (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003); en die Swinburne Universiteit Emosionele Intelligensie Toets (Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test) (Palmer & Stough, 2001). Twee honderd en tien (210) respondente het die vraelyste voltooi en terugbesorg aan die navorser. Die bevindinge toon dat oppervlakkige toneelspel (“surface acting”) (‘n dimensie van EA) ‘n positiewe verwantskap het met emosionele uitputting, asook om dit te voorspel (nl. vermeerderde uitbranding). Omgekeerd, was diep toneelspel (“deep acting”) (‘n dimensie van EA) verwant aan ‘n vermeerdering in persoonlike bekwaamheid (nl. verminderde uitbranding). EI het ‘n negatiewe verwantskap met oppervlakkige toneelspel maar ‘n positiewe verwantskap met diep toneelspel getoon, en het 20% van die variansie in diep toneelspel voorspel. Die resultate wys daarop dat mense met hoër EI meer waarskynlik diep toneelspel tegnieke sal gebruik, wat uitbranding vlakke sal beinvloed. Verder was EI verwant aan ‘n vermeerdering in persoonlike bekwaamheid (nl. verminderde uitbranding). Emosionele bestuur (‘n dimensie van EI) het die grootste variansie in persoonlike bekwaamheid voorspel. Die resultate toon dat EI nie ‘n moderator in die verwantskap tusseen EA en uitbranding is nie. Ondanks hierdie bevinding, was daar genoeg bewyse gevind vir die waarde van die ontwikkeling van EI intervensies (wat diep toneelspel tegnieke bevorder) in die inbelsentrum bedryf. Dienstyd was positief verwant aan emosionele uitputting en negatief verwant aan diep toneelspel. Die resultate bewys dat EI intervensies in inbelsentrums nie net in die begin van ‘n werknemer se loopbaan geïmplementeer moet word nie, maar deur die hele loopbaan moet voortduur. Die beperkinge van die studie en voorstelle vir toekomstige navorsing is bespreek.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2009. / This study provides a comprehensive overview of challenges and obstacles that are caused by high telecommunications costs within the callcentre industry in Cape Town, South Africa. This study couldn't have come at a better time considering the current turbulent economic circumstances around the world. The study focuses on key areas such as, growth, profitability, employment creation and sustainability of callcentres. In order to fulfil research requirements, primary data was collected by using a quantitative data collection approach in the form of questionnaires and interviews. Results indicate that the biggest obstacle to growth within the callcentre industry in the Western Cape, is high telecommunications costs. The study recommends that our Government should intervene through its communications departments as means to reduce current telecommunications costs. Callcentres should also explore use of new telecommunications technology, namely VoIP. A solution to the high telecommunications costs will not only benefit the callcentre industry but the entire country through foreign direct investments, job creation and poverty alleviation. This will result into true empowerment of our society.

Au cours des dernières années, les centres d'appels ont été introduits avec succès par de nombreuses entreprises axées sur les services comme les banques et les compagnies d'assurance. Ils deviennent le principal point de contact avec les clients, et une partie intégrante de la majorité des sociétés. L'émergence à grande échelle des centres d'appels a créé une source féconde de problèmes de gestion des opérations. Dans cette thèse, nous nous concentrons sur la question de dimensionnement et définition des emplois du temps dans les centres d'appels. L'objectif de notre travail consiste à développer des analyses qualitatives ainsi que quantitatives, afin de déduire des recommandations utiles aux managers.Nous analysons quatre problèmes qui tiennent compte de l'incertitude sur les paramètres d'arrivée des appels. Le processus d'arrivée des appels est supposé suivre un processus non stationnaire et doublement stochastique avec un taux moyen d'arrivée aléatoire.Dans le premier modèle, nous considérons un centre d’appels avec une seule vacation possible. Les agents traitent en même temps des appels entrants et des tâches de back-office. Ceci permet d’avoir une certaine souplesse pour modifier en temps réel la capacité instantanée de traitement des appels entrants. Nous analysons l'impact de la flexibilité offerte par les charges de travail de back-office.Dans le deuxième modèle, nous considérons un centre d'appels avec plusieurs vacations possibles. Les agents traitent seulement des appels entrants. Dans ce modèle, le dimensionnement initialement établi peut être corrigé au cours de la journée de travail. Nous proposons une approche de programmation stochastique en deux étapes et une approche de programmation réglable robuste pour résoudre le problème d’optimisation. En particulier, nous analysons et montrons l'avantage supplémentaire d'utiliser le réglage dynamique sur les coûts de dimensionnement du centre d’appels. Dans le troisième modèle, nous considérons un autre type d'incertitude supplémentaire, qui est l'incertitude sur la distribution de probabilité d'un paramètre aléatoire. Nous proposons une approche combinant la programmation stochastique et la programmation distributionnellement robuste, et nous évaluons son rendement. Le dernier problème de dimensionnement d’un centre d'appels pour lequel le manager se propose de satisfaire un niveau de service global pour toute la journée au lieu d’un niveau de service objectif par période. Nous permettons également la mise à jour du dimensionnement au cours de la journée. Dans notre analyse, nous montrons en particulier les avantages de l'ajout de la flexibilité de mise à jour, et soulignons l'impact d'avoir une contrainte de service niveau globale sur les performances. / In the past few years, call centers have been introduced with great success by many service-oriented companies such as banks and insurance companies. They become the main point of contact with the customers, and an integral part of the majority of corporations. The large-scale emergence of call centers has created a fertile source of management issues. In this thesis, we focus on the issue of staffing and scheduling of call centers. The objective of our work is to derive both qualitative and quantitative results for practical management.We specifically address the analysis of four problems that take into account the important feature of uncertainty in the call arrival parameters. The call arrival process is assumed to follow a doubly non-stationary stochastic process with a random mean arrival rate.In the first model, we consider a single-shift call center blending inbound calls and back-office jobs. By allowing the possibility of real-time changes in the capacity dealing with inbound calls, we analyze the impact of the flexibility offered by back-office jobs.In the second model, we consider a multi-shift call center with single type of inbound calls, in which the scheduling update is allowed. We propose a two-stage stochastic programming approach and an adjustable robust programming approach to efficiently solve the problem. We also analyze the benefits of using dynamic adjustment on scheduling.In the third model, we consider an additional type of uncertainty, namely the uncertainty on the probability distribution of a random parameter. We propose an approach combining stochastic programming and distributionally robust programming, and evaluate its performance.The last model deals with a call center optimization under a global service level constraint instead of period by period constraints. We again allow scheduling decisions to be updated during the middle of the day. We show the advantages of adding the update flexibility, and point out the impact of having a global service level constraint on performance

Les centres d’appels connaissent un grand succès depuis leur introduction dans les entreprises de service. Ils sont le principal point de contact avec les clients, et une composante essentielle de la majorité des entreprises. L’émergence des centres d’appels à grande échelle a suscité de nombreuses problématiques de management. Dans cette thèse, nous considérons des problématiques de management orientées sur les centres multi‐canaux et multi‐compétences. L’objectif de notre travail est de trouver des résultats qualitatifs et quantitatifs utiles pour le management. Dans la première partie, nous considérons les architectures de centres multi‐compétences à flexibilité limitée. Le contexte est celui de centres d’appels avec des paramètres asymétriques : charge de travail non équilibrée, différents temps de services, prédominance d’une catégorie de clients, taux d’abandons variables et couts élevés de la multi‐compétence. Les architectures les plus connues avec flexibilité limitée comme chaining ne résistent pas à de telles asymétries. Nous proposons une nouvelle architecture, appelée Single Pooling avec seulement deux compétences par agent et nous démontrons son efficience dans diverses situations d’asymétrie. Dans la seconde partie, nous nous intéressons aux problèmes de routage dans les centres d’appels multi‐canaux. Dans le premier projet, nous considérons un centre avec des appels arrivant au fil du temps et des emails présents en nombre illimité. Le service des appels se fait en trois étapes dont la seconde est une pause pour l’agent. Nous cherchons à optimiser le routage des emails. L’objectif est de maximiser le débit d’emails traités sous contrainte de temps d’attente pour les appels. De nombreuses recommandations sont proposées au manager. En particulier, nous démontrons que pour obtenir un routage optimal il est nécessaire de fixer à une valeur extrême au moins l’un des deux paramètres définissant le routage des emails. Dans le second projet, nous étudions une politique de seuil de réservation d’agents pour les appels en réception. Nous considérons un cas général de modèle non stationnaire ou le processus d’arrivée des appels est Poisson non homogène. Le problème d’optimisation est la maximisation du débit de taches en émission sous contrainte de qualité de service sur les appels en réception. Nous proposons une méthode efficiente et facile à implémenter de changement adaptatif de seuil. Cette politique est évaluée en comparaison avec les performances optimales trouvées dans le cas particulier de taux d’arrivée constant, et en comparaison avec d’autres méthodes intuitives de changement adaptatif de seuil dans le cas général non stationnaire. Dans le troisième projet, nous considérons un modèle de centre avec option de rappels. Cette option permet de transformer un appel en réception en un appel en attente d’émission. Le problème d’optimisation est la minimisation du temps d’attente des appels en émission sous contrainte de qualité de service pour les appels en réception. Nous proposons une politique de routage à deux seuils, un sur la réservation d’agents pour les appels en réception et un sur le nombre d’appels en attente d’émission. Nous déterminons une courbe optimale entre ces deux seuils / Call centers have been introduced with great success by many service‐oriented companies. They become the main point of contact with the customer, and an integral part of the majority of corporations. The large‐scale emergence of call centers has created a fertile source of management issues. In this PhD thesis, we focus on various operations management issues of multi‐skill and multichannel call centers. The objective of our work is to derive, both qualitative and quantitative, results for practical management. In the first part, we focus on architectures with limited flexibility for multi‐skill call centers. The context is that of call centers with asymmetric parameters: unbalanced workload, different service requirements, a predominant customer type, unbalanced abandonments and high costs of crosstraining. The most knowing architectures with limited flexibility such as chaining fail against such asymmetry. We propose a new architecture referred to as single pooling with only two skills per agent and we demonstrate its efficiency under various situations of asymmetry. In the second part, we focus on routing problems in multi‐channel call centers. In the first study, we consider a blended call center with calls arriving over time and an infinitely backlogged queue of emails. The call service is characterized by three successive stages where the second one is a break. We focus on the optimization of the email routing to agents. The objective is to maximize the throughput of emails subject to a constraint on the call waiting time. Various guidelines to call center managers are provided. In particular, we prove for the optimal routing that all the time at least one of the two email routing parameters has an extreme value. In the second study, we examine a threshold policy on the reservation of agents for the inbound calls. We study a general non‐stationary model where the call arrival follows a non‐homogeneous Poisson process. The optimization problem consists on maximizing the throughput of outbound tasks under a constraint on the waiting time of inbound calls. We propose an efficient adaptive threshold policy easy to implement. This scheduling policy is evaluated through a comparison with the optimal performance measures found in the case of a constant stationary arrival rate, and also a comparison with other intuitive adaptive threshold policies in the general non‐stationary case. In the third study, we consider a call center model with a call back option, which allows to transform an inbound call into an outbound one. The optimization problem consists on minimizing the expected waiting time of the outbound calls while respecting a service level constraint on the inbound ones. We propose a routing policy with two thresholds, one on the reservation of the agents for inbound calls, and another on the number of waiting outbound calls. A curve relating the two thresholds is determined.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T15:57:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo3203_1.pdf: 3864799 bytes, checksum: 500c1ed242d62eb06b6271e45b30d5db (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Os call centers de serviços de emergência fornecem serviçoes de extrema importância para a sociedade, pois é a partir deles que são acionados os órgãos de segurança, resgate e socorro. Quando aciona um serviço de emergência, a população faz seu primeiro contato com um call center, para onde convergem todas as chamadas. Essa central faz o acionamento dos profissionais da Polícia Militar, Corpo de Bombeiros, Polícia Civil e da Polícia Científica. Baseado na importância dos serviços de emergência,é necessário que os call centers prestem seus serviços de forma eficiente, respeitando um tempo máximo de atendimento, diminuindo o tempo de resposta as chamadas o que pode salvar vidas, combater crimes, manter a segurança da sociedade e proporcionar maior qualidade de vida à população. Este trabalho faz a avaliação e o planejamento de call centers de emergências a partir de um modelo estocástico expolinomial para simular o ambiente real. Avaliou-se: o comportamento da taxa de ocupação na fila de espera; o número de ligações descartadas; a probabilidade de desistências das ligações telefônicas, e o número de servidores livres para dar o prognóstico da real necessidade dos servidores e a relação com o número de ligações suportadas do call center. Visou-se, assim, com base nos resultados obtidos pelo modelo gerado, diminuir o tempo de resposta das chamadas de emergência, bem como o tempo de espera para atendimento e reduzir, com isso, o número de abandonos das ligações telefônicas. O pressente estudo proporcionou suporte a decisões para correções de problemas, como a má utilização dos serviços prestados. Um estudo de caso é apresentado para análise do impacto das variações da carga de trabalho no desempenho do call center, e o reflexo na taxa de ocupação na fila de espera, no número de ligações descartadas, na probabilidade de desistências das ligações telefônicas e no número de servidores livres. Foi feita a análise do impacto do aumento da fila de espera para atendimento e seu impacto no desempenho do call center

O crescimento do setor de serviços e sua representatividade na economia brasileira, tem se mostrado muito consistente. Com especial destaque a telecomunicação, que mostra uma intensa apropriação dos avanços tecnológicos e das repercussões das alterações do molde produtivo do capital. O telemarketing atua como um canal que recebe informações, críticas e sugestões de clientes e divulga produtos e serviços de forma rápida, pelo telefone e estruturase em um diálogo padronizado, que acontece à distância, mas em tempo real. Seu objetivo central é a concretização de negócios, pois as centrais de telemarketing oferecem serviços como novas formas de venda pelo telefone ou atendimento ao cliente. As relações entre operador e usuário se fundamentam em um tipo de trabalho cuja natureza é predominantemente cognitiva e caracterizada pelas funções perceptivas e mentais solicitadas no decorrer do trabalho. Este estudo de caráter qualitativo, objetiva investigar as condições de trabalho dos operadores de telemarketing de uma empresa privada da cidade de Uberlândia- MG, para identificar em que medida as formas de organização do trabalho, às quais estes trabalhadores estão submetidos, interferem em sua saúde, segundo seus próprios depoimentos. Foram entrevistados dez operadores de ambos os sexos, com mais de 18 anos e com no mínimo um ano de contratação. Todas as entrevistas, que foram gravadas, foram realizadas no domicilio dos trabalhadores. A partir dos relatos dos entrevistados foram levantadas as principais queixas de saúde, aqui entendida em seus pelos trabalhadores do setor pesquisado, e estabelecida a sua relação com as condições de trabalho. A reestruturação do modelo produtivo impetrada pelo capital acarretou repercussões funestas nas condições de trabalho e consequentemente na saúde dos trabalhadores. Em especial, os trabalhadores desse setor sofrem com a constante pressão por produtividade a que são submetidos. Os dados revelaram que a intensificação do ritmo de trabalho, o rígido controle exercido aspectos mais amplos, e por isso, envolvendo questões de ordem física e psíquica apresentadas sobre os trabalhadores para o cumprimento de padrões pré-estabelecidos de atendimento dentro de um período de tempo limitado e as condições físicas do ambiente de trabalho, como iluminação, ventilação e condições dos equipamentos acabam por influenciar na saúde desses trabalhadores desencadeando diversos sintomas de ordem física e psíquica. / The expansion of the telemarketing sector in the Brazilian economy has been very consistent. Telemarketing shows an intense use of technologic advances and also reflect the consequences of the transformation of the capital´s production way. Telermarketing acts as a channel that receives information, criticism and suggestions from clients, and also, advertises products and services, in a fast way, by phone. It is based in a previously established dialogue, at a distance but in a real time. It´s main objective is to reinforce a relationship between client and business, offering different ways of phone selling and support to the consumers. The relationship between phone operator and client is based on a performance of cognitive nature, caracterized by perceptive and mental aspects during the work. This study, of qualifying aspect, investigates the working conditions of telemarketing operators in a private company in Uberlandia, MG, to identify, in which ways this type of work affects their health, according to their own reports. Data were collected through recorded interviews with 10 telemarketing operators, men and women, over 18 years old and with, at least, one year experience. They were contacted through personal indication. All interviews were performed at their homes. Based on their personal reports, their main health complaints were listed, involving physical, psychological and social aspects, all related to poor work conditions. The capitalism urge a new productive model that brings terrible consequences to work conditions e consequently to general aspects of worker´s health. There is intense pressure on workers for productivity, due to a modern capitalist model, directed toward maximizing efficiency and productivity. Collected data demonstrate that telemarketing operators are experiencing an increase of work load, a rigid control by supervisors on established patterns (script and time limit), and poor physical conditions at workstation, such as inadequate light, ventilation, equipment, which affect their health, increasing risks of physical and psychological disorders.

Contact Centres (CCs) are at the forefront of interaction between an organisation and its customers. Currently, 17 percent of all inbound calls are not resolved on the first call by the first agent attending to that call. This is due to the inability of the contact centre agents (CCAs) to diagnose customer queries and find adequate solutions in an effective and efficient manner. The aim of this research is to develop an intelligent user interface (IUI) model to support and improve CC operations. A literature review of existing IUI architectures, modelbased design and existing CC software together with a field study of CCs has resulted in the design of an IUI model for CCs. The proposed IUI model is described in terms of its architecture, component-level design and interface design. An IUI prototype has been developed as a proof of concept of the proposed IUI model. The IUI prototype was evaluated in order to determine to what extent it supports problem identification and query resolution. User testing, incorporating the use of eye tracking and a post-test questionnaire, was used in order to determine the usability and usefulness of the prototype. The results of this evaluation show that the users were highly satisfied with the task support and query resolution assistance provided by the IUI prototype. This research resulted in the design of an IUI model for the domain of CCs. This model can be used to assist the development of CC applications incorporating IUIs. Use of the proposed IUI model is expected to support and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of CC operations. Further research is needed to conduct a longitudinal study to determine the impact of IUIs in the CC domain.

To improve our understanding of offshoring and how it is evolving, salient ideas from both institutional and prospect theories are utilized to build a more descriptive model of how decisions are made to (re)direct foreign investment into offshored activities. Careful examinations of the offshoring programs in India and Mexico reveal that they took different investment trajectories during the past decade that can be aptly explained by this integrative model. The primary information used to measure the population trends of offshoring firms in India and Mexico comes from proprietary data sources for each country that issue annual reports on the number of operators in their respective offshoring sectors, that is, services and manufacturing.

To improve our understanding of offshoring and how it is evolving, salient ideas from both institutional and prospect theories are utilized to build a more descriptive model of how decisions are made to (re)direct foreign investment into offshored activities. Careful examinations of the offshoring programs in India and Mexico reveal that they took different investment trajectories during the past decade that can be aptly explained by this integrative model. The primary information used to measure the population trends of offshoring firms in India and Mexico comes from proprietary data sources for each country that issue annual reports on the number of operators in their respective offshoring sectors, that is, services and manufacturing.