Revenue Management Through Dynamic Cross Selling in Call Centers
将呼叫中心的交叉销售问题建模为动态服务速率控制问题，分析最优策略下何时及向谁进行交叉销售，并提出一种静态启发式策略，数值分析表明增加人员配置对收入有正向递增效应。
This paper models the cross‐selling problem of a call center as a dynamic service rate control problem. The question of when and to whom to cross sell is explored using this model. The analysis shows that, under the optimal policies, cross‐selling targets may be a function of the operational system state. Sufficient conditions are established for the existence of preferred calls, i.e., calls that will always generate a cross‐sell attempt. These provide guidelines in segment formation for marketing managers, and lead to a static heuristic policy. Numerical analysis establishes the value of different types of information, and different types of automation available for cross selling. Increased staffing for the same call volume is shown to have a positive and increasing return on revenue generation via cross selling, suggesting the need to staff for lower loads in call centers that aim to be revenue generators. The proposed heuristic leads to near optimal performance in a wide range of settings.