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The Contact Centre Simulator Game CC-SIM

Intra-day Operations Management

The Contact Centre Simulator Game [CC-SIM] is an innovative way to train centre supervisors and managers

The simulator is presented as a business game, providing a number of real-time challenges for the player to recognise and overcome during the course of one day.

It lets supervisors and managers pit their skills and experience against the vagaries of daily life in a contact centre.

The game presents a workflow that includes voice calls as well as email processing.

The player’s first task is to provide appropriate staffing to handle the workflow, staying within the shift profiles and staff skills that are available to the centre.

Then the day’s activities begin.

What happens during the course of the game ?

scheduled staff don’t come to work

staff go home sick; or

call volumes fluctuate in response to business situations etc.

. . . just like a real day in a contact centre . . .

By making decisions during the course of the day, the manager can assign temporary staff to handle fluctuating loads, or outsource excess calls to an overflow service . . .

All the while, the simulator is running and presenting real-time operating statistics . . .

   And like real life, all choices result in costs.

   The “score” at the end of the day is measured on two scales

performance (i.e. quality of service provided):

measured by service level, abandoned calls, emails processed, agent utilisation etc., and

staff operating cost

including regular staff costs, supervision, temporary staff assigned, outsourcing for excess calls etc.

The game provides a number of valuable learning activities for call centre managers including:

	workload estimation and staff assignment;
	cost management;
	balancing intra-day labour resources against service requirements; and
	insourcing vs outsourcing analysis.

Managers who take part in the game end up with some very informative feedback on their call centre management style and real-time decision making abilities.

There are detailed graphical reports on . . .

With emphasis on operating cost structure . . .

And optimal staff assignment . . .

With records of staff occupancy throughout the day . . .

All in all, an extremely innovative way to train contact centre supervisors and managers . . .

We are now including the hands-on use of the simulator as a key component of our management training courses for call centre supervisors, managers and executives.

The simulator is also being used as a “what if” tool for examining different scenarios related to shift pattern changes, traffic changes or modifications to agent work practices within an operational centre.

It runs on a standard desktop PC, and has been especially designed to be quick to learn and intuitive to operate, while providing an educationally valuable and memorable learning experience.

Click here to email us for further information on how this simulator can be used as part of your in-house training