New rep first-week checklist

This is a day-by-day checklist for a new support rep's first five days. It assumes a standard Monday-to-Friday first week, one named onboarding buddy, and a manager who owns the sign-off. The goal for week one is narrow and deliberate: get set up, learn how the product and tools actually work, absorb the team's voice, and send a handful of supervised replies — not to run a live queue solo. That comes later.

Work it top to bottom. Don't skip [bracketed] items — replace the brackets with your real tools, names, and links before you hand this to the new hire. If something can't be ticked by end of day, carry it forward and tell the buddy; a blocked box on Day 1 is normal, a hidden one is not.

Who to ask

Fill this in on Day 1 and keep it somewhere the rep can see it all week. "I don't know who to ask" is the single most common reason a first week stalls.

Rule for the week: ask early, ask often. In week one, asking a "dumb" question is doing the job right. Guessing on a live customer is not.

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Day 1 — Accounts, access, and the lay of the land

Goal by end of day: logged into everything, met the people, and read the two documents that explain how this team works. No customer contact today.

Accounts and access

• Laptop set up, password manager installed, [SSO] login working
• Helpdesk account active ([Zendesk / Intercom / Freshdesk / ...]) — can log in and see a queue
• Email and calendar working; recurring buddy check-in and weekly 1:1 already on the calendar
• Added to team chat and these channels: [#support-team, #support-escalations, #product-updates, #incidents]
• Access confirmed to: knowledge base, internal admin/back-office tool, status page, [phone/CCaaS], [bug tracker]
• Two-factor set up on every account that offers it
• Know how to raise an access ticket if something's missing — and raised one for anything that is

People and orientation

• Met the buddy in person or on a call; agreed how to reach them and when they're free
• Met the manager; know when the first 1:1 is
• Introduced to the wider team (a quick round of names and what each person owns)
• Filled in the Who to ask table above with real names and channels

Read before anything else

• Read the support team charter: hours of cover, channels you handle, SLA targets, what "good" looks like
• Read the tone / voice guide once, start to finish (you'll come back to it on Day 3)
• Skimmed the org chart / who's who so escalation names mean something

End of Day 1

• Can log into every tool on the access list without help
• Know who your buddy and manager are and how to reach them
• Have one written question ready for tomorrow's check-in

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Day 2 — Product basics

Goal by end of day: you can explain, in plain language, what the product does, who uses it, and reproduce the handful of things customers do most. You are a user of the product before you're a supporter of it.

Learn the product as a customer would

• Completed the standard product walkthrough / demo [course link]
• Created a personal test/sandbox account — know how to make more for reproducing issues
• Reproduced the top [3] customer workflows end to end: [e.g. sign up, connect an integration, invite a teammate, export data]
• Broke something on purpose in the sandbox and recovered it — so you know what an error looks like

Understand who's on the other end

• Learned the main customer segments: who they are, what plan they're on, what they're trying to get done
• Know the difference between a [free / trial] user and a [paid / enterprise] user, and why it changes the answer
• Read the top 10 knowledge base articles by ticket volume [link to that view]

Map the product to the tickets

• Got the list of the top 5 issue types from the buddy and the standard fix for each
• For each of those 5, found the KB article or macro that covers it

End of Day 2

• Can explain in your own words what the product does and who pays for it
• Reproduced the top [3] workflows without help
• Can name the top 5 issue types and where to find the fix for each

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Day 3 — Tools, ticket flow, and the team's voice

Goal by end of day: you know how a ticket moves through your tools from open to closed, and you can write a reply that sounds like the team.

How a ticket actually flows

• Walked the full lifecycle in the helpdesk: new → triaged → in progress → pending → solved → reopened
• Learned tagging and priority: which tag, which priority, and what each one triggers
• Learned how SLAs are timed — what starts the clock, what pauses it (e.g. "pending on customer")
• Found and bookmarked: macros / saved replies, the KB, past tickets search, the status page, the internal admin tool
• Learned the escalation path: what goes to Tier 2, engineering, or billing — and exactly how to hand it over
• Practised in the sandbox: open a ticket, tag it, set priority, reply, add an internal note, reassign, solve

Tone and voice

• Re-read the voice guide with the product fresh in your head
• Learned the team's reply shape: acknowledge → answer → next step → close
• Noted the do's and don'ts: [e.g. no "unfortunately", contractions are fine, never blame the customer, sign off with first name]
• Rewrote 2-3 example replies from the "before" pile into the team's voice; buddy gave feedback
• Know when to use a macro as-is vs. edit it so it doesn't read as canned

End of Day 3

• Can trace a ticket through every status and say what each transition means
• Can correctly tag and prioritise a sample ticket
• Can state which issues get escalated, to whom, and how
• Wrote at least one reply that the buddy said "sounds like us"

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Day 4 — Shadowing

Goal by end of day: you've watched real tickets get handled well, and you've started narrating how you'd handle them before the buddy does.

Watch the work

• Shadowed the buddy on live tickets for at least [3] hours — sat with them or on a screen-share
• Read 10 resolved tickets flagged as good examples; noted why each one is good
• Watched at least one escalation get created — saw what "enough detail for Tier 2" looks like
• If phone/chat is in scope: listened in on [2-3] live [calls/chats]

Flip it: reverse-shadow

• On [3-5] incoming tickets, said out loud how you'd respond before the buddy acted, then compared
• Drafted (but did not send) replies to [3] real tickets; buddy marked them up
• Practised the harder-than-it-looks move: telling a customer "we can't do that" politely and clearly

Capture what you're learning

• Started an "answers I had to look up" note — keep adding to it past week one
• Wrote down 5 questions from shadowing to raise at the end-of-week 1:1
• Logged one thing that seems broken, confusing, or missing from the docs (your fresh eyes are useful — say so)

End of Day 4

• Shadowed at least [3] hours of live work
• Drafted replies to [3] real tickets that needed only light edits
• Can describe what a clean escalation contains

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Day 5 — First supervised tickets + week review

Goal by end of day: you've sent your first real replies to real customers — every one reviewed before it goes out — and you and your manager agree on where week two starts.

Your first supervised tickets

• Buddy hand-picked [3-5] low-risk tickets (how-to, known issues, simple config — no VIPs, no angry customers, no billing disputes)
• You drafted every reply; buddy reviewed each one before it sent — nothing reaches a customer unreviewed today
• Tagged and prioritised each ticket yourself; buddy checked
• Escalated at least one ticket that was out of scope, cleanly, rather than attempting it
• Added any new lookups to your "answers I had to look up" note

Today's bar is not speed or volume. It's: sent a correct, on-voice reply to a real person with a safety net under you. Three good tickets beats ten rushed ones.

End-of-week 1:1 with manager

• Walked through your 5 shadowing questions and got them answered
• Manager gave feedback on your first supervised replies
• Raised anything still shaky, confusing, or blocked
• Agreed what week two looks like (more tickets, lighter review) and any specific focus areas
• Booked/confirmed next week's check-ins

Week-1 competency check

All of these should be true before you start week two. If any aren't, that's fine — flag it, and the buddy repeats that part.

• Can log into and navigate every core tool unaided
• Can explain what the product does and the top 5 issue types in your own words
• Can trace a ticket through its full lifecycle and tag/prioritise correctly
• Wrote replies in the team's voice that needed only minor edits
• Sent at least [3] supervised replies with no factual errors reaching a customer
• Know exactly who to ask for each kind of question
• Manager sign-off: [name / date]

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At-a-glance

Week one is a floor, not a race. A rep who's flying can pull Day 5's supervised tickets forward; a rep who's underwater should hold and repeat, not push on to a live queue. The checklist protects both the new hire and the customer — don't let the calendar override an unticked box.