Hi,
we’re thinking of starting to employ remote Support Heroes at LiveChat (for now everybody is working in our office). However, we’re a bit afraid of the onboarding process. Does anybody have experience in that and could help us with some tips?
We have a couple of remote Success Champions, to ensure everyone is involved we use Slack as our office and we all chat there and we share each others success’s massively which brings everyone together as a team.We also have ice breaker emails which they answer and are shared with everyone, actually the onboarding doesn’t stop as we keep bringing in new practices to ensure training, day to day etc are all so that remote and inhouse have the same transparent information and chat
We dipped our tow in this this year, it’s 100% BRILLIANT! The out of office team head up our evening shift - they are great. I have learnt so much though. And still learning! The first thing is to be very clear about your expectation for them and making sure they have the tools they need, training on product etc and also a boundary. For example my team do not have access to anything other than our web - I had planned that they would have however watching and learning I realised that the main office team are those that need the full package and my evening team are now a very confident brilliant front line, if they cant answer it they direct the customer to the office team the next day and that way the customer is very happy (they know what and who to ask) and the evening team can carry on and be there for product question rather than getting involved in long winded complaints that I’d no hope in hell of training them for. So it’s about what you think you want to achieve remotely. My team also LOVE livechat and it shows - they do short shifts - like 2 hrs at a time, and they can manage their homelife around it so it really has a positive for the agents and the business… if we then have any sickness etc at the office they can dip in too. Another thing is to work out how will you communicate with them, how will you train them, how will you manage their performance… I feel I could write more!
3 Likes
Hey guys,
We’ve been doing remote onboardings for almost 2 years now. Remote Training is largely based on feedback from its participants so it evolved considerably compared to what it was at the beginning. Nowadays, we use our own GetResponse software to distribute training materials and walk newbies through the whole training process – thanks to that, they have all the information they need to start working effectively.
In case of employees working from a different location, we put them through an automated learning course that adjusts to their own pace. We start off with an introductory webinar which serves as a starting point of further communication with a designated coach who will help in case of any doubts – we also use it as an opportunity to explain how the whole training works. After the webinar, the trainee receives a series of emails with detailed instructions on things to read, videos to watch and DIYs to perform. For that, we are using our own Marketing Automation system.
DIYs are sent to a designated Coach for review and feedback. Every day, during the training process, a coach performs a webinar to sum up finished tasks and revise the material that was covered.
The training ends with a competence test which is marked automatically. For that, we are using a combination of a Marketing Automation algorithm and a survey created in GetResponse.
After the basic training, trainees are transferred to a separate mailing list that points to an online course presented on Landing Pages that can’t be found in search engines. That list is also including trainees in our in-house CRM software that we’re using to plan new training sessions as a part of development proces for each employee.
The course consists of tutorials, whitepapers and videos and is also based on trainee’s pace. Majority of these pages require the trainee to send their Coach a unified DIY document concerning a specific part of the training. Thanks to that, the trainee needs to practice what they’ve learnt on a specific course and the trainers can immediately correct any mistakes and provide invaluable feedback right at the start.
Only after such a preparation process is the trainee ready to start doing their regular shifts. First, they’re working under trainer’s supervision and then, gradually, they’re starting to do their shifts entirely on their own.
This year, our training process has won a Stevie Award in Product Training category so we’re really happy we’ve been recognised for our efforts
Let me know if you want to know more 
2 Likes