Measuring the Technical Efficiency of service Operation with DEA : An Application to Call Center service

DEA 기법에 의한 서비스 운영의 기술적 효율성 분석 : 콜센터 서비스 사례연구

In the present emerging global economy, as the focus is shifted from manufacturing to service sector, the efficiency of service operations is crucial for the county's sustainable growth and development. As one of the fastest growing service sector industries in South Korea, the call center has become an inevitable part of customer service for most companies. Despite of the strategic importance of the call center, there has been no empirical study on the efficiency of call center service operations in the literature. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the technical efficiency of call center services so as to not only identify the current status of call center service operations, but also suggest ways to improve service operations efficiency. For this purpose, we apply a non-parametric efficiency measurement method, DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis), to domestic call centers in order to compare their relative efficiency. Based on DEA evaluations, we provided specific directions for the inefficient call centers to possibly improve their operation efficiencies. It is expected that the measurement methods suggested in this study can be applied to various issues such as service KS certification, service operations management, and the productivity analysis of service personnel.