New Hire Onboarding Cx

# New Hire Onboarding — Customer Experience

## When this skill fires

- New CX team member is starting
- Manager asks "how do we ramp CX hires?"

## Why this is different from eng onboarding

> *@rachel: "CX onboarding is different from eng — we shadow real tickets first, no codepath."*

CX hires don't ship a PR. They build *judgment*. The ramp model is observation → assisted → solo, not "ship a tiny thing."

## Pre-arrival checklist

- [ ] Zendesk seat provisioned (start as Light Agent for read-only)
- [ ] Slack invite to: `#cx-*` channels (read-only first), `#deal-desk` (read-only), team channel
- [ ] Refund policy doc shared (`policy/refunds-v3.md`)
- [ ] Refund denial template doc shared (`templates/refund-denial-empathetic.md`)
- [ ] Pairing schedule with @priya for week 1

## 4-week ramp

### Week 1: Observe
- Shadow @priya (or designated mentor) on **20 tickets across categories** — refunds, escalations, replacements, billing questions
- Read every refund policy doc end-to-end
- Read the last month of `#cx-escalations` — see how decisions get made

### Week 2: Assisted
- Take simple tickets (tier-1 questions, status checks)
- @priya reviews every response before send
- Daily 15-min sync to discuss judgment calls

### Week 3: Solo on tier-1, escalate edge cases
- Tier-1 tickets unsupervised (still upgraded if anything is sensitive)
- Edge cases ping @priya or @rachel
- Refund decisions still escalated unless < $200 and clear-cut

### Week 4: Solo on most refund decisions < $500
- Auto-approve refunds within policy
- Escalate only:
  - Anything over $500
  - SLA breach scenarios
  - Customers threatening BBB / public complaints
  - Anything that *feels off*

## The "feels off" rule

> *@rachel: "if you can't articulate why a decision feels right, escalate. trust is built in 90 days, broken in one bad call."*

CX hires get a free pass on escalating "I'm unsure" indefinitely. We'd rather pay 5 minutes of @priya's time than have a refund denial blow up on Twitter.

## Useful artifacts the new hire should bookmark

| Artifact | Where | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| `refund-decision-policy.skill.md` | this brain | The actual policy + auto-approve thresholds |
| `policy/refunds-v3.md` | Notion | The HR-owned policy doc (source of truth) |
| `templates/refund-denial-empathetic.md` | Notion | Tone template for hard nos |
| `#cx-escalations` archive | Slack | Real precedents — by far the best teacher |
| Quarterly carrier-issues report | Drive | Context on which carriers are causing pain |

## Anti-patterns

- Asking the new hire to read all docs first → boring, low retention
- Solo on refunds before week 3 → mistakes that cost trust
- Treating CX onboarding like eng onboarding (ship-a-PR) → wrong shape

## Source

Extracted from `#onboarding` threads about **Jordan Lee (started 2026-04-15)**, who is currently on track for solo refund decisions by 2026-05-15.

## See also

- [[companies/acme-logistics]] — tenant context
- [[people/rachel]] — primary owner; CX-lead pairing
- [[skills/refund-decision-policy.skill]] — destination skill (week 4 target)
- [[skills/new-hire-onboarding-eng.skill]] — sibling onboarding pattern