Training New Hires for Ecommerce Customer Support Roles

We spend months interviewing to find the “perfect” CSM… and then set them up to fail. Here’s the reality I see too often: ❗ New hires are thrown customers after 1–2 weeks. ❗ Product training is rushed or nonexistent. ❗ SOPs are thin, outdated, or missing. ❗ Leaders don’t invest the time to set expectations or coach. ❗ And then KPIs are handed down that even seasoned CSMs struggle to hit. The issue isn’t the talent, it’s the lack of enablement. But here’s the good news: you don’t need a dedicated L&D team or endless resources to onboard well. You need intention. A simple enablement plan for new CSMs (even with limited resources): 1️⃣ Onboarding Buddy - Pair new hires with an experienced CSM for shadowing, Q&A, and feedback. 2️⃣ 30-60-90 Plan - Outline clear goals and expectations for their first 3 months. (Focus on learning before doing.) 3️⃣ Product Deep Dives - Host weekly “lunch and learns” where Product, CS, or Support walks through one feature in detail. Have them shadow customer onboarding or watch recordings. 4️⃣ Playbook Starter Pack - Even if you don’t have full SOPs, document 3–5 repeatable workflows (renewals, QBR prep, escalation handling). 5️⃣ Mock Meetings – Run practice customer calls internally before they ever face a real customer. 6️⃣ Leader Time - Block weekly 1:1s focused not just on performance but on coaching, context, and confidence-building. These aren’t heavy lifts, they’re discipline and focus. If you want your CSMs to succeed (and your customers to stay), stop spending all your energy on hiring the “perfect” candidate and start spending more on enabling them once they walk through the door.

When we first started thinking about how to truly elevate customer service, we quickly realized it’s not just about hiring the right people—it’s about setting them up for success from day one. Over the years, we’ve learned a few tips that has allowed us to serve 700+ top E-Commerce brands, and I thought I’d share some of our most effective strategies. Here are five tips that have really worked for us: 1️⃣ Mastering Product Knowledge: The better your team understands your product, the more confident they are in helping customers. We’ve found that immersive experiences, like shadowing seasoned employees or diving into detailed knowledge bases, make a world of difference. 2️⃣ Handling Tough Situations: Crisis moments are inevitable. But when your team is prepared with role-playing exercises and methods like the LAST framework (listen, apologize, solve, thank), they approach challenges with calm confidence. 3️⃣ Establish Playbooks For Autonomous Decision-Making: Empower your team to make decisions confidently with clear playbooks and decision trees. Define boundaries, standardize processes, and emphasize company values to guide them to better serve your customers. When they know the rules, they can act swiftly and create loyal customers for your business. 4️⃣ Advocating for Customers: Great service goes beyond solving problems—it's about creating champions. Encourage your team to go the extra mile. Feedback loops and personal touches really help customers feel seen and valued and gives them an excuse to share their experience with others. 5️⃣ Building a Strong Team Culture: No one thrives in isolation. By fostering a sense of unity through team-building and recognition, you create a service team that’s motivated and collaborative. At TalentPop, we’ve seen firsthand how these methods can transform not just the customer experience but the entire brand. It's been exciting to watch the impact. As we head into 2025, how are you thinking about evolving your customer service strategy? If any of this resonates with you, I’d love to chat.

Back for another edition of our Building in Public series around Postscript’s SMS Sales product. One of the most common questions we get asked: "How are Sales Associates trained to become an expert in our products and speak in our brand voice?" We staff over 35 Sales Associates at our Ecommerce Sales Center (check out the video tour of the center below). They text customers on behalf of brands like Dr. Squatch, Gozney, and True Classic, driving incremental sales. SMS Sales Associates come with backgrounds in hospitality, retail, sales, and even marketing degrees. Think of them like you’d think of someone doing sales in-person at a high-end retail store. We teach them how to convert those skills over to SMS (where you don’t have the benefit of being face-to-face with your customers) and deep knowledge of the brand and products. Here’s an inside look at what we teach them in the first weeks of onboarding: Week 1: Sales Expertise - Postscript’s mission, culture, and values, just like every new employee who joins our team -Ecommerce and SMS marketing fundamentals -Sales 101 - from being a good communicator, doing customer discovery, objection handling, to closing a sale -How to take those sales methods and apply them to SMS (the playbooks that we’ve developed) -Our Amazing Conversations Framework - how we strive to make each and every conversation amazing, whether it leads to a sale or not -Shadowing existing SMS Sales experts and a TON of practice exercises Week 2: Brand Expertise -Deep dive on each brand they will be working with. We cover general brand knowledge, like mission, FAQs, return policies, handling situations unique to each brand, and more. -And then they learn each brand they’ll be supporting’s agent persona (remember Chad from my last post?), the brand voice and the way they want us to text, everything about their products. We have a ton of products in our office so agents can touch and feel what they are selling, and not just see it on a product page. -Introduction to the SMS Sales software, where the magic happens -More shadowing and working with their team leads to see how conversations are handled By the end of week 2, they feel confident and ready to start their official shifts. The instruction goes well beyond the first couple weeks of onboarding though. Every morning, team leaders spend time with the Sales Associates to reinforce best practices, share learnings, and pass along updates from the brands. And finally, there are additional training sessions every month. Our goal is to build the best ecommerce sales team for the brands on SMS Sales. If that sounds like something your brand could use, especially for the holiday season, send me a note!