Answer the phone to someone whose Outlook has stopped working, who has clicked a link they should not have, or who cannot reach the system they need before a deadline. Talk them through it out loud. Then find out how you did.
Incoming call
Sarah Thompson
Finance
“Hi, sorry, my Outlook keeps asking me to sign in and I have a meeting soon. Can you help me?”
She will not tell you she changed her password yesterday. You have to ask.
The caller speaks first and behaves like a person, not an assistant. They answer the question you actually asked, they hold back what you have not thought to ask for, and they will not diagnose their own problem. Interrupt them and they stop, the way someone does on a real phone. When you think it is fixed, they check — and tell you honestly whether it worked.
If you ask them to read out their password, they will refuse and sound uneasy about being asked. That moment is scored.
Pass at 70. Asking for a password or waving through an unexplained MFA prompt is a critical failure, and no amount of good troubleshooting rescues the call from one.