From the customer to the firm: evaluating generic service process designs for incoming customer requests
In this paper, generic service process designs are presented for handling customer requests within a communication center. The process characteristics which are relevant in this domain are the level of difficulty (standard versus special requests) and the communication channel (synchronous versus a-synchronous requests). The design dimensions are task allocation to generalists and specialists, front-office and back-office role and degree of integration of synchronous and a-synchronous requests. The process designs are evaluated within an experimental simulation study with empirical data from a car rental company. The analysis shows strengths and weaknesses of the process designs under different conditions. Based on these results a model of competing effects is developed which helps to understand the complex dependencies within service process designs. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
service processes business process design customer interaction inbound communication center business process simulation