Does anyone in a call center environment have calssroom PC's with production loaded on them, so that during the training, trainees take live calls in the classroom with the trainer or coach there?
In my previous company, this was the practice, in addition to nesting on the floor.
At my current company, I have two call centers in addition to overseeing retail training in three markets. We are investigating the pros and cons of this process...Customer Care would like it, and IT thinks there is a high risk of error. Anyone have thoughts?

First, a training environment that mirrors Q (test), THEN a "pit" where they do take live calls in production (after a solid week of practicing with each other in Q). Actual production IN the classroom? No way. There's a lot more to what we did, but I'm not inclined to type that much. *grin*

Yes, we do have this capability.

We would consider this to be the "pit" LL describes.

We simply lack space to have a separate area, so the live calls with a coach are done in the classroom. The trainers do not do this alone. It is the supervisors/coaches who work with the trainees when they take live calls.

Thanks for the input. At two previous center,we too had the training environment to practice on, and when we felt they were ready to take live calls, they were able to switch modes. Intersting that LL called it the pit!

Been in many call centers and from a Training perspective I always prefer:
- A shortcut for Trainees to access the Test region (for the GUI or app)
- A shortcut for Trainees to access the Live region (for OJT/nesting the last few days of training)
- Live phone system that can accept in-house calls (for roleplays) but can also allow calls from the switch

Typically, IT does not like the live regions because it requires add'l work when configurations of these PC's or virtual machines are needed. Also, depending how many platforms/clients/products the call center handles, there might be a limitation on various logins - one place comes to mind where our Client services 12 different products and they had to have specific training rooms assigned to specific products b/c of the limitations in PC and telephony functionality.

Operations should want these PC's ready for live calls from a Business Contingency Plan (BCP) perspective. I have also been in situations where one center needed to handle extra volume from another site (i.e. Hurricane closed one site down and we took the extra volume) and did not have enough production seats - these add'l seats in the Training room allows the center to handle add'l volume as needed.

There are a lot more logistical advantages of having live regions in Training but not going to get too deep.

Bottom line is to have both functionalities present if you can.