Most call centre training software falls into one of three groups. The first holds courses (an LMS). The second scores real calls after they happen (QA and analytics). The third lets agents practise a call before it happens (simulation). Many vendors cover two of these. Few do all three well. Decide which gap hurts most before you book demos, or you will compare tools that solve different problems.
This checklist is for the third group: software where an agent talks to a simulated caller and gets feedback. We make one such tool, DIRI AI, so we say where it fits and where it does not.
Which gap do you have?
| If this is your problem | You need | Example question for vendors |
|---|---|---|
| Agents do not know the product or the process | Courses and knowledge checks (LMS) | "Can I build a quiz from our policy document?" |
| You cannot see what happens on live calls | QA and interaction analytics | "Which share of calls do you score, and against which form?" |
| Agents know what to say but freeze or ramble on the phone | Voice practice with a simulated caller | "Can my agent practise this exact complaint ten times before Monday?" |
If you ticked the third row, read on.
The 14-point checklist
Practice itself
- The agent speaks, out loud. Typing a reply trains a different skill. The job is said, not written.
- The caller pushes back. A useful simulated caller interrupts, repeats the complaint, refuses the first offer and gets calmer only when the agent does something right.
- Your scenarios, not only the vendor's. You should be able to describe your own caller: the late delivery, the refused refund, the price rise on renewal.
- Adjustable difficulty. A new hire needs an irritated caller before a furious one.
- The agent's language. Check the list by name. "30+ languages" tells you nothing about Polish or Hungarian.
Feedback 6. Quotes, not only scores. The report should point to the sentence that made the caller angrier and suggest a better one. 7. The same call again. The agent should be able to repeat the situation and compare the two attempts. 8. Progress over weeks, per skill, so a team lead can pick one thing to coach.
Team and privacy 9. Practice is separate from performance review. Agents practise honestly only if a bad practice call cannot be held against them. Ask how the vendor keeps the two apart. 10. Clear data handling. Where recordings and transcripts are stored, who can see them, how long they are kept, and whether there is a DPA. 11. Role-based access for team leads and trainers. 12. The simulated caller is labelled as AI. Agents should never wonder whether they are talking to a person.
Buying 13. Visible prices or a written quote that covers 12 months for your headcount. 14. A trial you can run without the vendor in the room.
A two-week pilot that tells you something
- Day 1. Choose three calls new agents struggle with. Write one line each: who calls, what they want, what makes it hard.
- Days 2 to 5. Five agents practise each scenario twice a day, 5 to 10 minutes per session.
- Days 6 to 10. Team leads read the reports and pick one coaching point per agent. Agents repeat the scenario with that point in mind.
- Day 10. Ask agents one question: "Which sentence do you now say differently on real calls?" If nobody can answer, the tool did not change behaviour.
Do not judge the pilot on a score going up inside the tool. Judge it on what the team lead hears on real calls in week three.
Where DIRI AI fits
DIRI AI is a voice practice tool. An agent picks a situation, speaks with an AI customer and reads a report after the call. The report quotes the agent's words, explains the effect and suggests a better phrasing. The agent can then repeat the call.
- Languages: Czech, Slovak, Polish, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian and Hungarian.
- Team features on company plans: team dashboard, shared scenarios, coaching topics, a manager coaching queue, private role-based access, compliance rules and an audit trail.
- Built for training, not for evaluating employees. The AI customer is labelled as AI.
- Prices are public: a Free plan (3 voice calls a month, up to 5 minutes each, basic report, no card) and individual plans from €19.90 a month, tax included. Team plans start with a pilot.
Where it does not fit: DIRI AI does not score your live calls, has no course builder and does not automate conversations. If you need those, you need a QA platform or an LMS alongside it, or a broader suite such as Zenarate.
Try one of your hard calls: start a practice call, see how the report is scored or compare plans and prices.
FAQ
What is call centre training software?
Software that helps agents learn the product, the process and the conversation. It covers course platforms, QA tools that score real calls, and simulation tools where agents practise with a simulated caller.
Is AI call simulation better than role-play with a colleague?
It removes two problems: colleagues are busy, and agents are polite to each other. A colleague can still catch things a tool misses. Most teams use both. See AI role-play vs practising with a colleague.
How long should a practice call be?
Short. Five to ten minutes on one situation, repeated, teaches more than one long call that covers everything.
Can we use practice results to rate agents?
We advise against it. Agents stop taking risks in practice once it counts against them. Use practice data to choose what to coach, not to rank people.
How do we measure whether training worked?
Pick one behaviour you can hear on real calls, such as acknowledging the problem before explaining policy. Listen for it before and after the pilot. Our call centre QA scorecard template has a form you can adapt.
Related: AI training for call center agents, Call centre new-hire practice plan, Call centre and BPO training, AI roleplay tools for customer service training.