Distributed Contact Center Resource Allocation via Virtual Simulation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Resource allocation and scheduling in contact centers are complex due to varying contact volumes, agent skills, and multiple communication channels, especially across geographically distributed sites, making it challenging to minimize costs while maximizing service quality.
Innovation Solution
A system that creates a workload forecast and performs discrete event-based simulation to allocate contact center resources as if all sites were co-located, determining recommended allocations based on relative distributions of events across sites, considering operational constraints like network bandwidth.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional forecasting and scheduling methods are used, then the scheduling process is simple, but the service quality and cost optimization are insufficient due to the large number of variables
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a virtual model of the contact center that replicates the physical system's structure, agents, and operations. This virtual model allows complex simulations to be performed without affecting the actual contact center operations, enabling thorough evaluation of multiple scheduling scenarios while maintaining operational simplicity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs discrete event-based simulation in advance to evaluate multiple scheduling scenarios before implementing the final schedule. This preliminary action allows the system to identify the optimal schedule that balances service quality and cost, avoiding the need for complex real-time adjustments during actual operations.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple geographically distributed sites are used, then service coverage and flexibility are improved, but resource allocation complexity increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual model serves multiple functions: it represents the entire distributed contact center system, simulates various scheduling scenarios, evaluates service quality metrics, and optimizes resource allocation across all sites. This universal approach simplifies the management of geographically distributed resources by treating them as a unified system.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds a virtual dimension to the physical distributed contact center system. By creating a parallel virtual model that mirrors the physical system, the patent enables complex multi-site resource allocation to be solved through simulation, transforming a spatial distribution problem into a virtual modeling and optimization problem.
3Productivity
If discrete event-based simulation is performed to optimize resource allocation, then service quality and cost efficiency are improved, but computational complexity and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The discrete event-based simulation is performed in advance during the scheduling planning phase, not during real-time operations. This allows computationally intensive optimization to be completed beforehand, producing schedules that can be implemented directly without requiring real-time computational resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The simulation process is divided into discrete event segments that can be processed independently and in parallel. This segmentation allows the computational workload to be distributed and optimized, reducing overall processing time while maintaining the thoroughness of the simulation analysis.
4Adaptability or versatility
If multiple contact media are handled, then customer service versatility is improved, but agent scheduling complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual model incorporates multiple contact media channels (voice, email, chat, etc.) and agent skills into a unified framework. This allows the simulation to evaluate how agents with different skill sets can be allocated across various contact types, simplifying the scheduling of multi-skilled agents for diverse contact media.
Solution Approach 2:
The system assigns specific skills and competencies to different agents within the virtual model, allowing for localized optimization of agent assignments based on their expertise. This enables versatile handling of multiple contact media while maintaining scheduling simplicity through skill-based automated allocation.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for allocating resources, such as contact center agents, computer servers and recorders, among geographically distributed sites are provided. In this regard, a representative method comprises: creating a workload forecast, such as contact volume, and resource utilization, such as average interaction time, of events for a specified time frame as if the geographically distributed sites were co-located, performing discrete event-based simulation to assign or allocate the events to the resources as if the resources were co-located, and determining recommended allocations of the resources among the geographically distributed sites based on a relative distribution of events assigned to resources at each of the geographically distributed sites.