Long before I was a Machine Learning Director, I recall one of my friends telling me about his part-time work in college. He landed a new job at a contact center and frequently talked to me about the training program. One training exercise that stuck out to me was his role-play simulations for customer service calls. Role-play simulations are a powerful tool to help people master best practices through hands-on learning before they engage with live customers. But my friend found it somewhat inefficient and awkward role-playing with managers and fellow new hire agents.

Little did I know, my friend’s experiences would be the foundation of my current passion – creating Simulation Training that delivers hyper-realistic immersive learning experiences that augment the learning power of role-play for call center agents. Preparing agents to solve complex customer problems is essential with the rise of automation and chatbots leaving agents with the most challenging customer problems to solve. By amplifying role-play benefits through advanced technology, we are able to make hands-on immersive learning highly efficient and scalable to develop large communities of top-performing agents delivering superior customer experiences and performance.

Role-Play in Call Centers 

According to Training Industry, “The objective of role-play is to learn the skills necessary to be successful in a specific position.” Historically, these interactions happen between a trainee and a manager. The challenge? 

Human-to-human role-playing is expensive, awkward, and difficult to scale.

Simulation Training in Call Centers 

Simulation Training: Conversation, Screen, and Chat is amplifying the power of role-play by allowing agents to master best practices from home or office before they engage with live customers. Simulation Training removes agent anxiety by taking role-play private and enables leaders to efficiently scale top-performing agents through hands-on learning. 

Simulation Training is a human-centered AI approach to creating highly realistic and impactful learning experiences for any conversation and chat scenario. The platform allows customer-facing agents to learn through practicing, solving problems, making mistakes, and building confidence. Agents train in a life-like customer environment without any of the risks of a live customer.

There are three essential steps in the AI Conversation Simulation process:  

1. Agents listen to a best practice example of how to handle a call or chat scenario. 
2. Agents engage with the Simulation Training platform simulating a call or chat scenario with life-like accuracy. If the agent doesn’t use the best and required practices, the platform will pause the simulation, provide the agent real-time feedback to improve the skill and ask the agent to try again.
3. Contact center trainers assess agent readiness to engage with live customers through a Simulation Scorecard and Immersion Call Listening. 

Simulation Training actively empowers agents to master high-impact conversation scenarios quickly and conveniently in a safe environment from home or in the office. Contact center agents report that Simulation Training improves their confidence, removes their anxiety, and prepares them to succeed with live customers.

Leaders report that Simulation Training translates to improved business metrics like faster agent speed to proficiency, higher first-call resolution, better CSAT scores. And leaders report that Simulation Training reduces hiring and training costs, improves agent retention, and boosts contact center morale from agents excelling in their role.

At Zenarate, we’ve created the world’s #1 Simulation Training platform supporting global banks, large BPOs, and leading companies in the healthcare, technology, and services industries. With Simulation Training, contact center leaders develop top-performing agents delivering 56% faster speed to proficiency, 33% higher CSAT scores, and 32% lower employee attrition. 

Would you like to learn more about how Simulation Training is developing confident top-performing agents, and delivering superior customer experiences and performance? Request Your Live Demo