New software will coach call centre trainees online

If you've ever found yourself at the mercy of a bumbling trainee when talking to your bank's call centre, help is at hand.

Software will be launched in Auckland today that makes it simple for trainers to create role-playing scenarios for acting out on the computer, sparing human guinea pigs.

Called Roleplay, it has been developed over two years by Christchurch company Hand Multimedia.

Trainers from call centre-reliant organisations including a major bank, retailer, airline and phone company are being invited to join a pilot programme of early users of the software.

Hand creative director John Jackson said the company was also negotiating with two potential American customers that provide training to the defence and security industries.

He wouldn't name them but said they were real prospects.

"We're talking millions of dollars in terms of the overall deals," Jackson said.

The software has cost the company about $500,000 to develop. Jackson said its strength was that it could be used to quickly create detailed training scenarios that were simple to follow. For example, it could be used to coach a bank teller in how to respond to a robbery.

"It basically rehearses behaviour and has potential for customer service, security and call centre operators."

The software has five parts: the designer tool; a multimedia manager for creating collections of media files used to illustrate scenarios; the user interface or "stage"; a resources portal; and a tool for analysing training performance.

"The analysis tool is a very sophisticated tracker of user statistics, such as how long it takes the trainee to make a decision, how many attempts they have and the tips they looked at before deciding."

It can be used to judge whether a training programme is having the desired effect of improving productivity or service quality, or whatever other performance measure matters to the user organisation, Jackson said.

Roleplay is accessed online.