Once you’ve hired your latest members of staff, the next step is to onboard them successfully. That is, tell them everything they need to know to get started—and help them ease into the new role.  

This is an important step, so it’s best to follow a clear procedure. Your new team members need to be comfortable and equipped to do their job well. Here’s a system for you to follow:

The first step is to send a pre-boarding email that covers all the essential information, such as:

Getting all of this done in advance ensures that staff start on the right foot and don’t have to spend their first day filling out paperwork.

As your employees will be working remotely, it’s essential to ensure they have the right technology set up. This may involve downloading chat management software on their computer, plus any other collaboration tools you may use.

Some will be comfortable installing software and making other tech changes, but others may need a helping hand. It’s essential to give them the help they need, as these tech tools are crucial to doing the job well. 

Perhaps the most important part of the onboarding process is organizing training. This will typically fall into two parts:

1. Technical training on how to use the chat management software and other business tools

2. Customer service training on how to deal with visitors and resolve problems   

This training is likely to take up much of the new hires’ time in the first week. In some organizations, this will be done through online courses. In others, an experienced agent will work one-on-one with each agent to train them individually. Of course, a combination of both is possible, too. 

During the onboarding process, be sure to ask for feedback from each of the new agents. You need to know how they feel about how things are going.

If there are any issues, you want to know about these early on. That will save you a lot of time and trouble further down the track.