Improving Right Party Contact Rates at Outbound Call Centers

Consumer delinquencies are a major problem for banks and other credit card issuers. These firms have collection centers across the country to collect outstanding balances from delinquent accounts. Their main strategy is to first send reminder notices and, if that does not work, to telephone delinquent customers and request payment. The latter often becomes necessary, resulting in high costs of collection. Automated dialers are used to make the calls, and when the call goes through, it is directed to one of several hundred associates manning computer workstations. In this operation, it is important to contact the account holder in order to discuss payment options. Simply getting someone on the line is not sufficient, because such calls would require follow‐up calls. The objective of efficient collections is to maximize dollars collected while minimizing costs, which generally translates to making a “right party contact (RPC)” in the minimum number of attempts. We developed and tested an algorithm that increased the RPC rates by over 10%. This increase translates to annual savings of several million dollars for an average credit card company. Although the focus of our paper is collections, the methodology developed is equally applicable for improving telemarketing efficiency.     

Subjective experiences of stress workload, and bodily discomfort as a function of age and type of computer work

An increasingly older workforce and a growing emphasis on jobs involving interaction with computers have resulted in a need to more carefully examine the relationship between ageing and computer-based work. In this study, a sample of 394 subjects ranging in age from 20-75 years performed a computer task across a 3-day period. Three different types of computer-based jobs (data entry, information retrieval, and accounts balancing) performed at three large US companies were simulated. Age differences in the subjective experience of stress, workload, and bodily discomfort were evaluated. The results indicated that age effects for these measures varied according to task. The older subjects perceived greater workload for the more mentally challenging problem-solving oriented accounts balancing task (Which involved a graphical user interface) than the younger participants, even with increased exposure to the task. However, the older subjects generally experienced less stress than the younger subjects on an information retrieval task that involved a more socially interactive telephone component. A positive relationship between the frustration component of workload and the measure of stress was also found, suggesting an important link between the constructs of stress and workload. Overall, the outcomes of this study provide important insights into design interventions intended to accommodate older as well as younger persons in the workforce.     

On determining the number of outliers in exponential and Pareto samples

In the present paper we suggest a procedure for the determination of the number of outliers in exponential and Pareto samples, using the predictive interval approach.     

Variable Royalty Rates for Improving Franchise Channel Coordination*

A business format franchisor obtains a major part of its revenues from franchise royalties, which are typically a fixed percentage of franchisee gross sales. When a fixed royalty rate is used and the marginal costs of operating the franchise are increasing, the franchisee does not have an incentive to increase sales beyond a certain “optimal” volume. We present a model that recommends the use of a variable franchise royalty rate for extending this optimal sales volume. For a general convex cost function, we show that a new lower rate can be applied to incremental sales beyond the original optimal level. We show that this new rate should be less than half of the original rate when a quadratic cost function is applicable. Adopting a variable royalty rate increases franchisor royalty revenues and franchisee profits.     

Some properties of discrete bathtub-shaped distributions

The existence and the usefulness of discrete bathtub-shaped and upside down bathtub-shaped distributions have been demonstrated in some papers of recent origin. However, the general properties of these two classes of distributions do not seem to have been discussed. This article proposes to study some reliability properties of such distributions. We investigate the closure properties with reference to convolution, mixing, series and parallel systems, etc. and existence of bounds on reliability functions, moment properties, and convergence.     

On some properties of equilibrium distributions of order n

In the present paper we derive some identities connecting the failure rate functions and moments of residual life of the nth order equilibrium distribution and the baseline distribution. These identities are used to characterize the generalized Pareto model, mixture of exponentials and gamma distribution by relationships between various reliability characteristics. An approach using the characteristic functions is also discussed with illustrations.     

REDUCED RESIDUE CLASSES CYCLIC PBIB DESIGNS

A new general class of m-class cyclic association scheme is defined for v treatments, where v is a composite number. A simple method of construction of PBIB designs having this association scheme using more than one initial block and some methods using only one initial block are proposed. A complete analysis of this type of PBIB designs is given. Also given is a list of 39 useful PBIB designs of this type having v≤15 and r≤10 and having only three associate classes together with their efficiency factors for all types of comparisons and over all efficiency factors.     

An estimator of the common mean of two normal populations

In this paper we consider the estimation of the common mean of two normal populations when the variances are unknown. If it is known that one specified variance is smaller than the other, then it is possible to modify the Graybill-Deal estimator in order to obtain a more efficient estimator. One such estimator is proposed by Mehta and Gurland (1969). We prove that this estimator is more efficient than the Graybill-Deal estimator under the condition that one variance is known to be less than the other.     

Quantile based reliability aspects of partial moments

Partial moments are extensively used in literature for modeling and analysis of lifetime data. In this paper, we study properties of partial moments using quantile functions. The quantile based measure determines the underlying distribution uniquely. We then characterize certain lifetime quantile function models. The proposed measure provides alternate definitions for ageing criteria. Finally, we explore the utility of the measure to compare the characteristics of two lifetime distributions.