Risk Mitigation at Call Centers

Abstract

Climate catastrophes (i.e. tornadoes, hail, hurricanes, etc.) have a significant economic and operational impact on the operation of call centers. It was found that catastrophe events such as hurricanes critically impact the operation of the affected location for a period of two months after the hurricane has occurred. A sudden increase of demand affects the service level agreement Company X has with its customers due to a shortage of labor resources to attend the inbound calls until the process stabilizes and the location can achieve an adequate service level. Can a company leverage resources from a network of call centers to support impacted locations during a disruptive climate catastrophe event? This study focuses on the development of a call rerouting model. The problem was divided into four main parts: (i) Data preprocessing, (ii) Demand analysis with the use of exponential smoothing, (iii) Capacity analysis using queueing theory and, (iv) Determination of locations to deviate the inbound calls to with the use of a Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model (MILP). In conclusion, the project defines a framework for the company to balance resources during high pressure situations, which can be applied to different types of disruptions in the inbound calls process.