L.L. Bean chooses a telephone agent scheduling system

The authors recently participated with L.L. Bean in developing a computerized procedure for selecting complex, large-scale telephone-operator scheduling systems. To assess capability in forecasting work load, setting requisite capacity levels, and generating satisfactory work-shift schedules, they used cost/benefit analysis and considered the expected penalty costs of lost orders due to understaffing and loaded-wage costs of overstaffing. The authors used queuing theory to model customer-call behavior for every hour over 24-hour days, seven days per week, and implemented the results of linear regression, which correlated customer-service level with expected customer abandonment rate, to estimate the impact on order revenues of telephone-service level.