Evaluating LLMs as Agentic Workflow Executors in Real-World Customer Support Skills
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling also fits: Software engineering coding agents
Abstract (arXiv)
Enterprise customer-support agents increasingly rely on Large Language Models (LLMs) to execute bounded, tool-using workflows. We study this problem through the lens of Skill LLMs: specialized executors that operate within a selected skill context and must complete a narrow, stateful workflow under policy and tool constraints. We present a benchmark construction pipeline that mines recurrent workflows from real-world transcripts, converts them into structured skill descriptions, maps them to tool requirements, simulates environment state with Model Context Protocol (MCP)-compatible mocks, and generates multi-turn tool-using dialogues. Using this benchmark, we conduct a large-scale zero-shot evaluation of 17 language models spanning closed model families and deployment-oriented open-weight models from 1.7B to 14B parameters, each judged independently by five strong LLM judges, plus a deterministic rule-based evaluator that checks tool coverage, hallucinated tool use, and unsupported claims. We find a consistent ranking in which GPT-5.4 leads by a wide margin and QWEN3.5-9B is the strongest open-weight model (below 20B), outperforming several closed baselines under every judge. We also find that judge choice is not a negligible methodological detail: pairwise judge agreement on the pass/fail verdict averages Kappa=0.524 across 10 judge pairs. These results suggest that comprehensive zero-shot evaluation of skill execution requires judge reliability as carefully as model capability.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 15 of its 27 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Oct 2026.
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15 of 27 references.
Closest ancestors · 4
Same direction, newest first
- 2025CONFETTI: Conversational Function-Calling Evaluation Through Turn-Level Interactions2 Jun
- 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs31 Jul
- 2023API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs14 Apr
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools9 Feb
Other references · 11
- 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,944
- 2021Finetuned Language Models Are Zero-Shot Learnerscited by 3,780
- 2022Self-Instruct: Aligning Language Models with Self-Generated Instructionscited by 2,724
- 2024A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judgecited by 1,423
- 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
- 2025τ2-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environmentcited by 627
- 2024ToolSandbox: A Stateful, Conversational, Interactive Evaluation Benchmark for LLM Tool Use Capabilitiescited by 295
- 2024Tiny Titans: Can Smaller Large Language Models Punch Above Their Weight in the Real World for Meeting Summarization?cited by 33
- 2026SkillOrchestra: Learning to Route Agents via Skill Transfercited by 23
- 2026A Survey on LLM-based Conversational User Simulationcited by 18
- 2025AI Knowledge Assist: An Automated Approach for the Creation of Knowledge Bases for Conversational AI Agentscited by 5
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- 2026SKILLS: Structured Knowledge Injection for LLM-Driven Telecommunications Operations
- 2026PolyWorkBench: Benchmarking LLM Agents for Cross-Lingual Long-Horizon Workflows
- 2026Characterizing Large Language Model Agentic Workflows: A Study on N8n Ecosystem
- 2026The Evolution of Tool Use in LLM Agents: From Single-Tool Call to Multi-Tool Orchestration
- 2026Beyond the All-in-One Agent: Benchmarking Role-Specialized Multi-Agent Collaboration in Enterprise Workflows
- 2026World of Workflows: A Benchmark for Bringing World Models to Enterprise Systems
- 2026Formal Skill: Programmable Runtime Skills for Efficient and Accurate LLM Agents
- 2026SQBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating Task Delivery by Language-Model Agents in Production-Oriented Workflows