Introduction

The inbound call center is a system where customer calls arrive to be served by the agents immediately, or have to wait in queue.
The fundamental challenge for call center is to find the right number of agents to use at the right time to handle calls that arrive randomly. Call
center managers must make effort to:
- maximize utilization of agents and, at the same time,
- minimize callers' waiting time.
One of the main issues in traffic engineering is that call arrivals in the real world are not distributed one right after another, but randomly:
- some will come in at the same time,
- some will come in when another is being served,
- no calls arrive during some period of service hour
These random distributions are determined by the laws of probability. The probabilty that is widely used to predict the arrivals of next calls
follows a well known distribution called Poisson distribution (below).

Probability of arrival Average time to next call arrival (eg. seconds)

Time to next call arrival (eg. seconds)

Main issues in managing call centers are:
- the number of lines (trunks) required (should be fixed),
- the number of agents required (can change from hour to hour).
The most popular method used for call center trunking and staffing is the famous Erlang formula with all its variants (Erlang B, Extended
Erlang B and Erlang C).
 Decision Tree
Traffic
Source

Random Non-
random

Blocking Queueing

No retrials Retrials Infinite Q Finite Q Finite

Finite sources
sources Peaked

Erlang B Extended Erlang C Equivalent Q Engset Equivalent

Erlang B EEB Random
Theory
Theory

Erlang B is more prevalent when blocked calls disappear, while Extended Erlang B assumes that some of the callers who are blocked
will try to call again. These formulas are very good at sizing trunk groups when the following assumptions are valid:
- infinite sources
- Poisson arrival rate
- blocked call are cleared (Erlang B), or recall (Extended Erlang B).
Erlang C applies to those situations in which the caller waits in queue until a server is available when all servers are busy. Erlang C is used
primarily for Automatic Call Distribution(ACD) and PBX staffing, with the following assumptions:
- infinite sources
- Poisson arrival rate
- FIFO queue
- a single server queue in which calls are directed to the first avaiable server
- no calls leave the queue.
 Variables

Abandon the percentage of callers who will abandon after a given (waiting) time
Agent Utilization percentage of agent's time spent on the telephone
Average Handling Time (AHT) time from the moment an agent starts to handle a call until the agent is available to take another call,
= duration of a call plus wrap-up time
Average Speed to Answer (ASA) the average time to connect to an agent
Block Factor the percentage of calls that cannot be answered (the caller receives a busy signal)
Calls per Hour number of calls received during one-hour period
Maximal Waiting Time time before the caller will normally abandon
Number of Agents the number of agents required to achieve a target (service level etc)
Recall (Retry) Factor the percentage of callers who try to call again (immediately) after hearing a busy signal
Queue Size average number of calls queueing
Queue Time the average waiting time for those calls that are not answered immediately
Queued the percentage of calls that will be queued
Service Level the percentage of calls to be answered within the service time
Service Time the time within which a certain percentage of calls will be answered
Traffic Rate (in erlangs) number calls in one hour x call duration (in seconds) / 3600
Wrap-up Time the time an agent remains unavailable to answer a call after a call has been completed.
 Number of Lines & Block Factor
Erlang B

Average
call Traffic
Number of Calls per duration rate Block
lines hour (seconds) (erlangs) factor

8 100 180 5.00 Err:511

 Number of Lines & Block Factor
Extended Erlang B

Average
call Traffic
Number of Calls per duration Recall rate Block
lines hour (seconds) factor (erlangs) factors

8 120 150 20.0% 5.00 Err:511

 Number of Agents Required & Other Indicators
Erlang C

Average Average
handling Service Number of speed to
Calls per time Service time agents answer Queue time Agent
Shift hour (seconds) level (seconds) required (seconds) (seconds) Utilization

0- 4 100 180 85.0% 15 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511

4- 8 105 150 85.0% 20 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
8 - 12 110 160 90.0% 20 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
12 - 16 115 180 97.0% 30 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
16 - 20 120 150 89.0% 25 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
20 - 24 125 120 88.0% 20 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
 Some outputs using (same) parameter values and different numbers of agents

Parameters: Outputs:
Service Calls Number Number Agent Queue
Service Time per AHT MaxWait of of Service % % utili- ASA Time Queue
level (sec) Hour (sec) (secs) agents trunks level Queued Aband'd zation (secs) (secs) size

85.0% 7 100 180 30 n-2 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n-1 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+1 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+2 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+3 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+4 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+5 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+6 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
n+7 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511 Err:511
 Service Time at Different Service Levels

Calls per AHT Service Service

Agents hour (secs) level Time

8 100 180 100.0% in Err:511 secs

95.0% in Err:511 secs
90.0% in Err:511 secs
85.0% in Err:511 secs
80.0% in Err:511 secs
75.0% in Err:511 secs
70.0% in Err:511 secs
65.0% in Err:511 secs
60.0% in Err:511 secs
55.0% in Err:511 secs
50.0% in Err:511 secs