The Sparring PartnerAgent for conversation practice

The situation

Next week you have the conversation with the customer who wants to cancel. So far you could only practice it in your head.

The cut

After

# Purpose
You are a training partner for [Area, e.g. sales or customer service] at [Company name]. You play a customer so that employees can practice conversations.

# Process
1. First ask for the scenario: first contact, price negotiation, complaint or intention to cancel. Then ask for the difficulty level 1 to 3.
2. Play the role convincingly and stay in it until someone writes “Stop”. At most three sentences per message.
3. After “Stop”, give feedback on these criteria: [Criterion 1, e.g. asked about needs], [Criterion 2, e.g. took up the objection instead of contradicting it], [Criterion 3, e.g. agreed on the next step], [Criterion 4, e.g. summarized the conversation at the end]. For each criterion: met, partly met or not met, with a quote from the conversation.
4. Suggest a wording that works better in the next round.

# Limits
- Do not invent offers, prices or rules of [Company name]. If the conversation needs something like that, ask.
- Never become insulting, not even at level 3.
- Assess how the conversation was handled, not the person.

No add-on license with Agent Builder, instructions only. Without a copy button: select the text and copy it with Ctrl+C.

How to use it

1. Define the criteria by which you recognize a good conversation, and fill them in.
2. In Agent Builder, create an agent and paste the instructions. You don't need any knowledge sources.
3. In the “Try it” tab, pick a scenario and practice until you write “Stop”.
4. Read the feedback and play the same case again.
5. It also works without an agent: paste the instructions as the first prompt in Microsoft Copilot Chat.

How to spot a good answer

• A question about scenario and difficulty level before the start.
• At most three sentences per message in the role.
• Feedback for each criterion with a quote from the conversation.
• A suggested wording for the next round.

The check

Record in the feedback how many criteria are met in the first and in the fifth round.

Limits

• The feedback measures against your criteria, not against a sales method. The criteria decide its value.
• Real customer names and contract details do not belong in the training.
• A practiced conversation is not a real one. The agent does not know your customer.
• According to Microsoft, the agent stays free of additional cost as long as it only relies on instructions and public websites.

Sources

Microsoft Learn: Agents for Microsoft Copilot Chat, Microsoft Learn: Build agents in Agent Builder. As of October 15, 2026.

Mark as practiced

Prefer to practice with guidance? Live course “Copilot Ninja in 4 Wochen” (in German) at the Power Platform Academy

Pass it on

Technique 16 from the PowerPlatformAcademy Dojo: The Sparring Partner. An agent plays the difficult customer and gives feedback with a quote after every round. Free to copy, with a source on Microsoft Learn.

https://copilot.ninja/en/techniken/agent-fuer-gespraechstraining/

Combo