Installing and using the LMS Conversation Simulator app

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The LMS Conversation Simulator ticket generation app by Zendesk Labs assigns realistic, true-to-life training tickets to agents in a structured, easy-to-use way. This new tool improves your agent training in several key ways:

• Creates a safe space for practicing customer interactions when onboarding agents
• Enables rapid assessment of agent training retention and comprehension
• Delivers just-in-time training for new products, services, and policies your agents need to understand

This article contains the following topics:

• Getting started
• Installing and using the LMS Conversation Simulator app
• Granting LMS admin permissions to non-admin roles
• Using the app
• Best practices
• Agent guide for the app

Getting started

Before you install the LMS Conversation Simulator app, take a moment to review the following:

• Training tickets generated by the LMS Conversation Simulator app must be evaluated within Zendesk QA (or another QA tool).
• You need to be signed in as a Zendesk admin to complete the setup.
• The app currently supports English only.
• You must enable custom objects (legacy custom objects are not supported).
• You must have at least two custom objects available for use. If you’ve already used up all of your included custom objects, you’ll need to upgrade your plan to obtain more.

Installing and configuring the app

Install the LMS Conversation Simulator from the Zendesk Marketplace.

To install and configure the app

1. In the Zendesk Marketplace, go to the LMS Conversation Simulator app page.
2. On the app's page, click Install.
3. Select the Zendesk account where you want to install the app, then click Install.

   The account you selected opens and the LMS Conversation Simulator page displays.

4. Change the app title if required.
5. Configure group and role restrictions to the app as required.
   Note: If you restrict an agent from the app, they won't be assigned training tickets.
6. Click the Sign in with LMS Conversation Simulator link.
7. In the new tab that's displayed, complete authentication.
8. You are then redirected back to the app. A green check mark will appear next to the OAuth Authentication step. Click Install.
9. During installation, the LMS Conversation Simulator automatically creates several configurations:
   • Custom Object: Assign training template
   • Custom Object: Training template
   • Custom Ticket Field: Assigned training
   • Custom Ticket Field: Training template
10. Both admins and agents need to have View and Edit access to the two custom objects for the app installation to work.

    In Admin Center, click People in the sidebar, then select Team > Roles.

11. From the list of roles, click the role you want to give permission to. The role settings page displays.
12. In the Custom objects section of the role settings page, configure the View and/or Edit permissions for the following custom objects:
    • Training template
    • Assign training template
13. Click Save.

The installation is now complete.

Granting LMS admin permissions to non-admin roles

Admins can select roles from the Permissions tab, enabling non-admin roles to access the LMS app for creating templates and assigning training to agents.

To grant access to the LMS app admin panel, each allowed role must have the View, Edit, and the additional permission Add for the LMS custom objects:

• Training template
• Assign training template

Using the app

To open the app, in Support, click the LMS icon ().

The Agent Training page displays. Here, you can view the title, description, creator, and assignees for each training template.

From this page, you can also perform the following actions:

• Create a new training template
• Assign training tickets to agents

Create a new training template

In this section, you'll create a training template that you can assign to agents.

This section contains the following steps. Follow each step in order:

• Getting started
• Define your scenario
• Test your training template
• Add training documentation
• Finishing up

Getting started

In this step, you'll provide basic information about your new template.

To create a training template

1. From the Agent Training page, click Create Training Template.
2. On the Create training template page, enter a unique name and optional description for the template, then click Next. The description you use does not affect your AI-generated tickets.

   

Define your scenario

Next, define your scenario. This defines the topics that the simulator will use to create tickets.

To define your Scenario

1. In the Define your scenario section of the Create template page, choose one of the following options to use as reference points for AI-generated ticket conversations:
   • Select intents: Select topics from the Zendesk-provided intents list.
   • Select similar tickets: Select related tickets from your real-life encounters with customers. You can use the standard Zendesk search syntax to find tickets that match your planned training conversations. The LMS Conversation Simulator will reference the end-user comments on these tickets to establish realistic detail for your training scenarios. You can click the ticket subject hyperlink to open the ticket in Support or choose the tickets you want to use as a training reference.
     Important: Make sure to redact any sensitive PII data in these tickets prior to creating the training template.

   

2. From the Select tone dropdown, choose the tone your AI-generated end user will use in conversation with your agents. You can choose from values such as friendly, sympathetic, and formal. You can select multiple tones, and the training assignment will randomly assign the selected tones to the created training tickets.
3. If there are any other details that you think might help create the training, you can enter them under Additional refinement. For example, you might specify products to reference or specific policies to push back against. This directly modifies the AI-prompt used to create the training tickets, so try to be explicit in your instructions.

   

4. Click Next.

Test your training template

This is a great time to test out an AI-generated conversation.

To test your conversation

1. On the Create training template page, click Test this ticket. A test chatbot is displayed where you can converse with the AI.

   

   Using this example, you'll see that the AI is referencing "software" when you want it to reference "retail clothing".

   

   To improve this, you can return to the scenario pages and select example tickets that reference clothing. You could also expand on your additional refinement to add details about your products that customers might want a refund for.

2. When you've finished testing, close the test chatbot.

Add training documentation

If you want your agents to review any training documentation prior to being assigned tickets for training or assessment, you can provide up to three links to documentation, videos, or internal policy documentation in your help center. These links will be provided in a single ticket to the agent prior to receiving any simulated customer conversations. When the agent solves the ticket, the first AI-generated conversation will be assigned to them. If no links are provided, the first ticket will be a generated conversation based on the scenario you created.

To add training documentation

1. Under Training documentation, click Add link.
2. Add a link to the training documentation you want the agent to see.
3. Add a name to the link to make it more readable for agents.
4. Continue to add links as required.

Finishing up

Now that you've finished configuring your template, you can save, edit, or delete it as required.

To save your template

• Click Save to return to the Overview page. From this page, you can click the options button () to assign, edit, duplicate, or delete the training template, as needed.

Assign training tickets to agents

At this point, you’ve created your training template and are ready to assign tickets to agents. You can choose agents based on their scores with similar tickets in Zendesk QA or another QA tool, select all new agents who are onboarding, or select all agents that might work with a new product or service. Complete ticket assignment with the following steps:

To assign tickets to agents

1. On The Agent training page of the app, for the template you want to use, click Assign.
2. On the Assign template page, provide the following (click Next to advance to each section):
   • Template: Select your appropriate training template from the list of available templates.

     

   • Language: Select the language that the tickets are created in from a list of shared languages between Zendesk and Anthropic (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Hindi, Bengali, Swahili, Yoruba, Indonesian).

     

   • Number of tickets: Enter how many training tickets you’d like the agent to receive from this training template. This does not include the initial training documentation ticket that you might have configured. Tickets will be created and assigned one at a time, with each new ticket being created after the previous one was solved. You can create up to ten tickets.

     

   • Tags: In order to identify, route, and track training tickets appropriately, you can tag your training tickets with one or more tags. Enter an existing tag, or create a new one. Press enter to finalize your selection.

     

   • Goals: Select or enter a description of your goal with this assignment. You can select a standard goal that targets more soft skills (for example, multi-step problem solving) or you can write a custom goal (for examole, "The resolution for this problem is that the bluetooth keyboard needs to be disconnected and reconnected"). The AI customer will end the conversation when the goal has been met.

     

3. Choose the agents who you want to assign the training.
4. Click Assign training ticket.

Best practices

Review the following best practices to help you get the most from the LMS Conversation Simulator app:

• If any of your reports and metrics use inclusions or exclusions, modify the reports as follows:
  • If your reports include a specific tag, form, or similar that's counted in your metrics, you don't need to take any further action. LMS tickets use your default ticket form and automatically apply the lms-training tag.
  • If your reports exclude items, you’ll need to modify these reports and metrics to exclude tickets with the lms-training tag.
• When you create groups, you'll often assign tickets to them and filter views based on groups. In this case, make sure that tickets with the lms-training tag are assigned to the appropriate group or there is a public view that includes all lms-training tickets assigned to the current user.
• Make sure that training tickets don’t impact an agent’s performance reviews. If you’re using Zendesk QA, exclude the lms-training tag from any dashboards you’re using.

Agent guide for the app

If you’ve been assigned a training ticket from the LMS Conversation Simulator, there are several important things to understand.

This section contains the following topics:

• About the training documentation ticket
• About the training ticket

About the training documentation ticket

Your training might begin with a single training documentation ticket. This will have between one and three documentation links that your administrator suggests reviewing before you begin having simulated conversations. When you’ve finished reviewing the documentation, solve the ticket.

The ticket can be identified by the requester (LMS Training Bot), Subject (Training documentation ticket), and potentially tags or custom ticket fields (Assigned training and Training Template), which, depending on your configuration, you might see in your ticket view.

Training tickets are created once you've solved the training documentation ticket.

About the training ticket

After completing the training documentation ticket (if included), you'll be automatically assigned your first training ticket. This ticket will have a status of Open. You can identify this as a training ticket using the ticket tags or custom ticket fields (Assigned training and Training Template), which, depending on your configuration, you might see in your ticket view.

Complete this ticket as you would any other. The requester will continue replying to you until the ticket is fully resolved. After the ticket is marked as Solved, any further training tickets will be created and assigned to the agent.