Estimating and Announcing Waiting Times in Multiple Customer Class Call Centers

Proceedings of INCOM 2006, Saint-Etienne, FranceMotivated by practices in call centers, we consider a multiclass, multiserver queueing system that offers information about anticipated delays to customers. First, we propose estimators of the state-dependent waiting time distribution of a new arrival customer. We next validate the estimators by empirical data. Second, we investigate the benefits of informing customers about anticipated delays, and we discuss different ways to communicate this information. In particular, we give attention to analyzing the announcement of the waiting time by steps