Punctual shut-down of a call center

摘要

This invention relates to real-time work centers in general and to call centers in particular. One of the problems of managing a real-time work center is deciding when to allow new work to enter the center and when to deny entry. For example, given a call center that does not operate around-the-clock, customer calls to the call center that occur near the call center's closing time must be either refused or diverted to another call center if the calls are not expected to be answered and/or completed by the scheduled closing time. According to the invention, a call center (100) rejects further calls when the sum of the present time, the anticipated call in-queue wait time (112), and the anticipated call service time (114) for this type (106-108) of call exceeds the closing time of the call center. The call center may redirect the rejected calls to another call center if it determines that the other call center can service them by its closing time. <IMAGE>