Building an AWS Contact Center QA Simulator: A Weekend Learning Project
hands-on with Amazon Connect
Series: Amazon Connect (3 articles)
- 2Building an AWS Contact Center QA Simulator: A Weekend Learning Project This article
Weekend Learning Challenge
For this weekend’s learning challenge, I decided to build something small, practical, and hands-on using Amazon Connect: an AWS Contact Center QA Simulator.
The goal was simple—to create a basic IVR experience where a caller can select the type of support they need and be routed to the appropriate queue.
Simple Flow:
What I built:
The simulator provides four support categories:
- Billing
- Technical Support
- Order Status
- Error Handling
When a caller connects, the system prompts them to select an option. Based on the selection, the call is routed to the corresponding queue.
I also added basic input validation. If the caller enters something other than the expected options, the system responds with an invalid input message and asks the caller to try again.
Another part of the implementation was handling timeouts, so the flow doesn't simply wait indefinitely when there is no response from the caller.
Check out my QA Simulator by dialing +1-877-291-8581
The Unexpected Hurdle
The most time-consuming part of the project wasn't creating the contact flow. It was getting the telephone number for testing.
On Friday, I created my Amazon Connect instance in US West (Oregon) — us-west-2 and successfully claimed a telephone number for my IVR.
When I came back to continue the project on Sunday, I couldn't find the instance I had created earlier.
Assuming I needed to start over, I created another Amazon Connect instance, this time in US East (N. Virginia) — us-east-1.
That's when I ran into another problem.
When I tried to claim a telephone number, Amazon Connect told me that I had already reached the allowed limit for claimed phone numbers.
I was confused. I hadn't knowingly used another number in the new instance.
After spending quite a bit of time troubleshooting, and with some help from Amazon Q, I finally figured out what had happened.
My original Amazon Connect instance was still there—it was simply running in a different AWS Region.
The telephone number I had claimed on Friday was associated with the original instance in us-west-2. When I created a new instance in us-east-1, I wasn't starting with a completely new phone-number allocation.
The issue wasn't the telephone number.
I was looking at the wrong Region.
The Lesson
This turned out to be one of the most valuable parts of the project.
It reminded me that when working with AWS, understanding Region-specific resources is just as important as knowing how to configure the service itself.
More importantly, I learned another practical lesson:
Before recreating a resource, troubleshoot and verify whether the original resource still exists somewhere else.
What initially looked like a missing instance and a phone-number limitation turned out to be a simple Region mismatch.
It took much more time than I had planned, but that troubleshooting experience was part of the learning—and probably one of the most useful lessons from this weekend challenge. It reminded me the dialogue from "Criminal Minds"
“Sometimes the solution is right in front of you. You just have to see it.”
What's Next?
This is just Version 1 of my Contact Center QA Simulator.
There are several directions I could take it next:
- Add more realistic customer scenarios
- Simulate agent/customer interactions
- Introduce call recording and analysis
- Add quality-assurance scoring
- Generate reports and dashboards
- Explore AI-assisted evaluation and feedback
For now, I'm happy that I went from an idea to a working IVR with queues, input validation, and timeout handling—and, along the way, solved a real AWS configuration problem.
That's what I enjoy about hands-on learning.
Build → Test → Troubleshoot → Learn → Improve.
Series: Amazon Connect (3 articles)
- 2Building an AWS Contact Center QA Simulator: A Weekend Learning Project This article
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