30-day support onboarding plan

Use this plan for a new support rep starting on a live queue. It assumes a five-day work week and one named onboarding buddy plus a manager doing the reviews. Replace everything in [brackets] before you hand it over.

How the gates work: each week ends with a competency check. It is a gate, not a formality. If any box is unchecked on the last day of the week, hold the rep at the current stage and repeat the parts they missed. Ramping slow is cheaper than a rep who guesses on live tickets.

Roles

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Week 1 — Product, tools, and shadowing

Goal: the rep understands what the product does, who uses it, and how a ticket flows through your tools. They are not touching live customers yet. By Friday they can explain your top five issue types in plain language and navigate the helpdesk without help.

Setup (Day 1)

• Accounts created and access confirmed: helpdesk, [knowledge base], [chat/Slack], [phone/CCaaS], [internal admin tool]
• Added to team channels and the on-call/escalation directory
• Read the support team charter: hours, channels, SLA targets, tone/voice guide
• Buddy and manager introduced; recurring 1:1 booked for end of each week

Product and customer

• Complete the standard product walkthrough / demo environment
• Set up a test account and reproduce the three most common customer workflows end to end
• Read the top 10 knowledge base articles by ticket volume
• Learn the customer segments: who they are, what they pay for, what "broken" looks like for each

Tools and process

• Walk the ticket lifecycle: new → triaged → in progress → pending → resolved → reopened
• Learn tagging, priority, and how SLAs are timed and paused
• Learn the escalation path: what goes to Tier 2 / engineering / billing, and how
• Know where to find: macros/saved replies, the KB, past tickets, the status page

Shadowing

• Shadow the buddy on live tickets for at least 6 hours across the week
• Listen to / read 10 resolved tickets rated as good examples
• Note 5 questions from shadowing and get them answered in the Friday 1:1

Competency check — Week 1

Must all be true before starting Week 2.

• Can navigate the helpdesk unaided: find, open, tag, reassign, and resolve a ticket in the sandbox
• Can explain the top 5 issue types and the standard fix for each in their own words
• Can reproduce the 3 most common customer workflows without help
• Can correctly state which issues get escalated and to whom
• Knows the SLA targets and the team's tone/voice rules
• Manager sign-off: [name / date]

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Week 2 — Supervised tickets

Goal: the rep drafts and sends real replies, but nothing reaches a customer without buddy review. Volume is low and deliberate. By Friday they have handled [15–25] tickets with review and their drafts need only minor edits.

Working the queue (with review)

• Buddy hand-picks 3–5 low-risk tickets per day (how-to, known issues, simple config)
• Rep drafts every reply; buddy reviews before it sends for the first [3] days
• From Day 4, rep sends directly on the simplest tickets, buddy reviews after the fact
• Target: [15–25] tickets handled across the week

Skills to build

• Write replies that follow the voice guide: acknowledge, answer, next step, close
• Use macros/saved replies correctly — and edit them so they don't read as canned
• Triage accurately: right tag, right priority, right queue
• Recognize when they don't know the answer and escalate instead of guessing
• Log/reproduce a bug clearly enough for Tier 2 to act without a follow-up

Review loop

• Daily 15-minute debrief with buddy: what went well, what to fix tomorrow
• Buddy leaves written feedback on at least 5 tickets
• Rep keeps a running "answers I had to look up" list

Competency check — Week 2

Must all be true before starting Week 3.

• Last 5 reviewed replies needed only minor edits (tone, a link) — no factual corrections
• Tagged and prioritized correctly on at least 90% of the week's tickets
• Escalated at least one ticket cleanly, with enough detail that Tier 2 didn't bounce it back
• No reply sent that gave a customer wrong information
• Handled at least [15] tickets
• Manager sign-off: [name / date]

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Week 3 — Independent easy queue + coaching

Goal: the rep owns a filtered "easy" queue on their own. Reviews shift from every ticket to spot-checks. Coaching focuses on speed, judgment, and edge cases. By Friday they hit roughly [60–70]% of a tenured rep's daily volume on easy tickets while holding quality.

Owning the easy queue

• Rep works a filtered queue (excludes [VIP, security, billing disputes, angry escalations]) independently
• Buddy spot-checks [5] tickets per day instead of reviewing all
• Rep escalates anything outside the easy filter rather than attempting it
• Ramp daily volume toward [60–70]% of a tenured rep by Friday

Coaching focus

• Two coaching sessions this week reviewing full ticket threads, not just replies
• Work on handle time without cutting corners: templates, keyboard shortcuts, parallel tickets
• Practice de-escalation wording on 2–3 mildly frustrated customers
• Review 5 of the rep's own tickets against the QA scorecard together

Judgment and edge cases

• Learn the 5 most common "looks easy, isn't" traps and how to spot them
• Practice saying no / setting expectations when the answer is "we can't do that"
• Know when to loop in the buddy proactively vs. push through

Competency check — Week 3

Must all be true before starting Week 4.

• Scores at least [85]% on the QA scorecard across [5] self-worked, spot-checked tickets
• Sustains at least [60]% of tenured-rep daily volume without quality dropping
• Correctly kept out-of-scope tickets out of the easy queue (didn't over-reach)
• Handled at least one frustrated customer without escalating unnecessarily
• Reopen rate on their resolved tickets is at or below the team norm [X%]
• Manager sign-off: [name / date]

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Week 4 — Full queue + review

Goal: the rep works the full, unfiltered queue with the same support any tenured rep has. The week ends with a formal review that decides whether they exit onboarding. By Friday they hold team-level quality and volume across all ticket types.

Full queue

• Rep pulls from the normal shared queue — all types, all priorities
• Standard peer/QA review only (no dedicated buddy spot-checks)
• Rep owns their tickets end to end, including follow-ups and reopens
• Volume target: within [10]% of the team median for the role

Broadening

• Handle at least one of each: escalation, billing/account issue, bug report, angry customer, "can we build X" feature ask
• Take part in a live chat or phone shift if those are in scope for the role
• Contribute one improvement: a fixed KB article, a new macro, or a flagged gap

30-day review (end of Week 4)

• Manager runs a formal review: QA scores, volume, reopen rate, CSAT if available, peer feedback
• Rep self-assesses against this plan and raises anything still shaky
• Agree next 30–60 day goals: specialties, channels, or metrics to improve
• Explicit decision recorded: onboarding complete / extend by [N] days on [area]

Competency check — Week 4 (exit criteria)

Must all be true to close onboarding.

• QA score at or above the team standard [X%] across the week
• Volume within [10]% of team median
• CSAT / reopen rate at or above team norms [X]
• Handled the full range of ticket types listed above with no factual errors that reached customers
• Escalates and de-escalates appropriately without prompting
• Rep confirms they feel ready to work solo; manager agrees
• Manager sign-off: onboarding complete — [name / date]

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At-a-glance

If a rep is coasting through a stage early, pull the next week's work forward — the weeks are a floor, not a ceiling. If they're struggling, hold the gate and repeat. Don't let the calendar override the competency check.