Problem and solution
Role-play with colleagues is awkward. How do we make it work?
You know practice would help, but the room goes quiet the moment you say "let's do a quick role-play". The awkwardness is normal, and most of it comes from the setup, not from your people.
Practical guidance for call training. Practice with DIRI AI is for coaching, not for rating or ranking people.
What it feels like
Someone reluctantly volunteers to be the customer and plays it with a nervous grin. The seller laughs at their own opening line, half the team stares at their screens, and the whole thing ends after ninety seconds with "yeah, that was fine". Nobody learned anything, and everybody quietly decided never to do it again.
If you lead the team, you feel the cost twice. You are convinced the skills need rehearsing, yet each attempt makes the next one harder to schedule. If you are the rep, you would rather make ten real calls than perform one pretend call in front of the people you sit next to every day. That preference is sensible, not a flaw in your attitude.
Why it happens
An audience changes the task
In a real call you have one listener. In a team role-play you have six, and each of them is judging, comparing or relaxing because it is not their turn. Performing for colleagues is a different skill from talking to a customer, and the first one is the one that feels hard.
Status gets mixed into the exercise
When the manager or the top performer watches, a mistake feels like evidence about you. People protect themselves by staying vague, joking, or choosing the easiest scenario. The practice becomes safe because it stops being realistic.
There is no safe way to fail
A good practice round should sometimes go badly, because that is where the learning is. Without an agreement that a bad round is allowed, nobody takes the risk, so the exercise never reaches the difficult part.
The format is vague
"Let's role-play" with no scenario, no timebox and no agreed feedback leaves everyone improvising the rules in public. Vague formats invite rambling, one-sided criticism and the feeling of being on a stage.
A method you can use this week
- Shrink the group to pairs or triples Skip the circle of spectators. Put people into pairs for the first run, with a third person as an optional observer who only watches the clock. Most of the discomfort drops when the audience is one person and they are busy.
- Write the rules on the scenario card Four lines are enough: three minutes per round, the customer plays the card and not their own personality, nobody gives advice during the round, and a bad round is the point. Say it aloud before the first round: "We are here to find the weak spot, not to look good."
- Give the customer a motive, not a script Hand the customer one private sentence such as "you are busy and slightly suspicious of anyone selling to you". With a reason to resist, they stop acting and start reacting, and the seller has something real to respond to.
- Use a three-part feedback format After each round the observer says one thing that worked, one moment that stuck out, and one change to try next time. The seller then repeats the same moment straight away. Feedback without a replay is just an opinion.
- Let the leader go first and fail visibly If you manage the team, take the seller's chair in the first session with a deliberately imperfect round. When people see you stumble and then simply try again, the rule that bad rounds are allowed becomes believable.
Drill: The ten-minute pair round
Run this with one colleague and a phone timer. Choose one objection both of you actually hear, for example "we already have someone for that". No preparation beyond a minute of reading.
- Round one, three minutes: the seller opens and handles the objection. The customer plays their private motive and does not help. No comments from either side while it runs.
- Feedback, one minute: the customer says one thing that made them want to keep talking and one moment where they stopped believing the seller.
- Round two, three minutes: the same seller, the same objection, one changed sentence only. For example, replace "we can save you money" with "what would you change about it today?".
- Swap roles. The new seller takes the same objection and tries the sentence that worked best in the first pair.
- Close, one minute: each person writes down the one phrase they will use on a real call today.
How you know it worked: You know it worked if both of you can name a specific sentence you would change, and if nobody laughed nervously during the second round. Awkwardness usually fades when the task is narrow and short.
How DIRI AI helps
Some of the awkwardness cannot be removed from a human exercise, because the audience is the problem. A private round is the other end of the scale: you speak through your microphone in the browser to a customer played by an AI, clearly labelled as AI, and nobody watches. Many people try the difficult sentence there first, then take the version they like into a pair round.
In DIRI AI you choose a situation or write your own, set the difficulty and the client type, and the customer reacts to what you actually say with its own motives and objections, not a fixed script. Afterwards the report shows a score, quoted moments from your transcript, the effect of each moment, one concrete next change and better phrasings. You can repeat the same situation and compare attempts, which is exactly the replay that group sessions rarely have time for. The Free plan allows 3 calls a month of up to five minutes each, no card.
Be realistic about the limits. An AI customer does not replace colleagues, who bring real emotion, product knowledge and the shared context of your own market, and it does not replace a human coach. The score is a guide for practice, not a validated measure, so treat it as a conversation starter. Teams that mix private repetition with a short live debrief tend to get the best of both, and managers can use the reports as a starting point for coaching, never as the only basis for decisions about people.
Try it on a practice call
Free plan: 3 calls a month, up to 5 minutes each, no card. You talk to a customer played by an AI, then read a report that quotes your own words.
Questions people ask
How long should a peer role-play session be?
Ten to fifteen minutes is enough if the scenario is narrow. A long session invites speeches and spectators. Short, frequent sessions also feel less like an event.
What if one person refuses to take part?
Do not force a turn in front of others. Offer the observer role, or let them try the scenario privately first and bring one sentence to the pair. Willingness usually follows safety.
Should the manager join the role-play?
Yes, but as a participant who goes first and gets feedback like anyone else. A manager who only watches keeps the status dynamic that makes people guarded.
Is private practice a replacement for team role-play?
No. It is a place to repeat and experiment without an audience. Colleagues add real reactions, product detail and shared standards that an AI customer cannot, so most teams are best served by using both.