Internal Warm Transfer Call Practice

Tools: Articulate Storyline, Audacity, Adobe PhotoShop
Audience: All Freedom Care new hires (U.S. employees, offshore BPO agents in Panama, and U.S.-based BPO partners)
Learners: 1,500+ over three years

Impact: Replaced a live training activity that disrupted call center operations and became a reusable simulation template for future training projects.

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Overview

New hires often feel nervous using the phone system for the first time, especially when performing a warm transfer in Talkdesk.

To help reduce this anxiety while maintaining a realistic learning experience, I designed an interactive simulation in Articulate Storyline that allows learners to practice warm transfers in a controlled environment before handling real calls.

This activity is now part of onboarding for all FreedomCare new hires, including internal employees and external BPO partners.

The Challenge

Before this simulation existed, warm transfer practice required using live callers during training. An agent would leave the call queue to receive transfers from trainees while the trainer facilitated the activity.

This created several operational challenges:

An agent had to be removed from the queue for up to one hour
Workforce Management had to coordinate schedule adjustments and queue coverage
Team leads temporarily covered calls during the activity
Some training sessions had long wait times for calls
Large classes sometimes had too few calls for everyone to practice

In addition, real callers often had to explain their issue only to be transferred during a training exercise, creating a poor customer experience.

My Solution

I designed a Storyline-based simulation that allows learners to practice the warm transfer process without using the live queue. The goal was to maintain the realism of real calls while removing the operational burden created by the previous training method.

The simulation allows learners to:

Listen to realistic call scenarios
Practice the warm transfer script
Build confidence before interacting with real callers

This solution fully replaced the previous live warm transfer activity used during training.

Design Approach

Authentic Call Audio

Instead of using AI-generated voices, I used real call recordings to make the experience more authentic.

Using Audacity, I edited the recordings to remove identifying information while preserving the natural pacing and tone of real conversations. This allows learners to hear what real calls sound like and better prepares them for live interactions.

Progressive Skill Building

The simulation includes three calls with decreasing levels of support:

Call 1: Full script provided
Call 2: Partial prompts
Call 3: Independent transfer with optional help

This approach helps learners gradually build confidence while still having support when needed.

Simulated Conversation Flow

Storyline triggers simulate the experience of speaking during the transfer.

While the activity does not record learner audio, the interaction creates the appearance of real-time conversation and allows the scenario to progress once the learner completes their response.

This keeps the activity technically simple while maintaining an engaging and realistic learning experience.

Collaboration

To ensure the training reflected real operational workflows, I collaborated with:

Team leads and experienced agents, who validated the warm transfer process
Subject matter experts, who reviewed and approved the script
IT and operations teams, who helped keep the simulation aligned with system procedures

To design the script, I listened to real calls with agents and identified the shortest and clearest way to perform a warm transfer, ensuring the training reflected how the process is actually handled on the phone.

Operational Impact

This simulation is now completed by all FreedomCare new hires, including:

U.S. employees
Offshore agents in Panama (Insignia BPO)
U.S.-based BPO agents (NexRep)

More than 1,500 learners have completed the simulation since its launch.

Key outcomes include:

Eliminated the need to remove agents from the call queue during training
Reduced coordination required with Workforce Management
Prevented training exercises from disrupting real callers
Reduced training time by removing the need for live explanations
Provided consistent practice across internal and outsourced teams

Learner and Trainer Feedback

Trainers reported that new hires now feel significantly less anxious before performing their first live transfer.

Learners also report that the activity:

Makes the process feel easier to understand
Builds confidence before live calls
Adds a fun and engaging element to onboarding

Because of its success, leadership and operational teams requested additional simulations for other systems and workflows.

Design Influence

The structure created for this simulation became a reusable template for scenario-based training within the organization.

Training stakeholders frequently reference this project when requesting new learning experiences, often describing new requests as:

"We want an activity like the warm transfer simulation."

The interaction design has also been adopted by other instructional designers on the team as a template for building similar simulations, helping standardize how interactive practice activities are developed across training programs.

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