Help Desk with Demonstration Model

Today, customers are much more demanding and cost-conscious than they are 5 or 10 years ago. Increasing competitive pressures make it a tough challenge for service enterprises to maximize service quality while minimizing costs. Such performance metrics as waiting time and activity costs are critical to providing quality service and strategically pricing services.

Typically, staffing and communication technology decisions for a customer service process have been made by analytical tools which fail to take into account the randomness and system dynamics that result in queuing. SIMPROCESS provides a complete set of statistical tools such as probability distributions, Data Analysis, and Design of Experiments; and advanced modeling features such as cyclical generation of entities, and resource downtimes.

This demonstration model shows how SIMPROCESS can be used for modeling the random nature of a Help Desk. The Help Desk utilizes three types of Customer Service Representatives (CSR's) to handle incoming customer calls. These CSR's are modeled as resources. The three type of CSR's are:

CSRhelp
Customer Service Representative trained to handle calls regarding transfer of ownership, power outage and billing inquiries.

CSRpage
Customer Service Representative trained to handle calls regarding paging inquiries.

CSR
Customer Service Representative cross-trained to handle calls regarding transfer of ownership, power outage, billing and paging inquiries. The hierarchical business process "Help Desk" contains two alternative ways of utilizing the same total number of resources. The business objective of this exercise is to best utilize the CSR's to minimize the time customers spend on hold waiting for an available Representative.

Alternative 1
This is the "As-Is" process. When a call arrives, it is answered by the first available CSRhelp. The Representative determines what the inquiry is regarding. The CSRhelp then either passes the call to "Desk 2" if it is a paging inquiry, or else handles the call. If the call is passed to Desk 2, the customer is put on hold until a CSRpage is available.

Alternative 2
This is the "To Be" version of the process. When a call arrives, it is answered by the first available CSR. The Representative determines what the inquiry is regarding and services the customer regardless of the category.

Demonstration Model

In order to view the demonstration model you must have SIMPROCESS installed on your computer and you must have a license. If you don’t have SIMPROCESS you may download a trial version.

You must save the demo model file by RIGHT CLICKING on the file below and select "Save Target As". Save the file to your computer. After you launch SIMPROCESS select File and Open. Then navigate to where you saved the demo file and select to open it.

Help Desk Demonstration Model file (HelpDesk.spm)

Additional demonstration models are stored on your computer in the default location: C:\ProgramFiles\SIMPROCESS\models\Demos

View the Help Desk Demonstration Model with your web browser.