Phone Training Checklist for New Hires

New-hire phone training should cover five things in the first week: how to use the phone system, the standard greeting and etiquette, scripts for the most common calls, message taking and escalation, and the compliance basics for recording and texting. Combine short written guides with shadowing and supervised calls, then sign off with a checklist before the person answers alone.

Below is a day-by-day plan and the checklist we recommend.

Before day one

• Create the new hire's user account and extension
• Add them to the correct ring groups (but not live until trained)
• Set their caller ID to the business number
• Prepare a one-page cheat sheet: greeting, extensions directory, hold and transfer steps, escalation contacts
• Choose a coach for the week
• Pick three to five recorded calls to use as examples, if you record calls

Day 1: the system and the basics

System walkthrough

• Making and answering calls on each device they will use (browser, desk, cell)
• Hold, transfer, and checking voicemail
• Where call history and contact records live
• Do-not-disturb and status settings
• How calls route during and after business hours

Greeting and etiquette

• The standard greeting, word for word. See how to answer a business phone.
• The hold rules. See how to put callers on hold.
• Warm vs cold transfers. See warm vs cold call transfers.
• The full team standard in business phone etiquette.

911 basics

Make sure the new hire knows 911 can be dialed directly from the business phone system without a prefix. Federal rules under Kari's Law require multi-line telephone systems to support direct 911 dialing and notification, and RAY BAUM'S Act rules require dispatchable location information to be sent with 911 calls. If the person works remotely, they need to know how to keep their registered address current. See E911 for VoIP business phones.

Day 2: the most common calls

List the five most common call types for your business and give a short script for each. For many small businesses those are:

Call type	Script to learn
New customer inquiry	Inbound lead call script
Booking or rescheduling	Appointment reminder scripts
Job or order status	Service delay notification scripts
Complaint	Complaint call script
Call for someone else	How to take a phone message

Have the new hire role-play each with their coach. The coach plays a realistic caller, including one who is impatient and one who is vague.

Day 3: messages, voicemail and escalation

• Taking a complete message: name, number read back, reason, urgency, callback time, who owns it
• Checking and clearing voicemail, and the callback targets in your response-time standards
• What counts as urgent and who to escalate to
• What the new hire is not allowed to promise (refunds, discounts, same-day visits) without approval

Day 4: texting and privacy

If your team texts customers from the business number:

• Only text people who have given permission, and include opt-out language in a first message to a new contact. The CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices set out carrier expectations on consent and opt-outs.
• Honor STOP and similar replies immediately. See STOP and opt-out handling.
• Use approved templates. See business text message templates.
• Never text from a personal number about business.

Privacy and recording:

• Whether your business records calls, and the notice callers hear
• Several states require consent from all parties to record a call; the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press maintains a state-by-state guide
• What information can be shared over the phone and how to verify a caller's identity before discussing an account

Day 5: supervised calls and sign-off

The new hire takes live calls with the coach listening. Afterward, review together:

• Was the greeting consistent?
• Did they get the caller's name and need?
• Did they set a clear next step?
• Was any message complete?

When they are ready, sign off and add them to live ring groups.

Sign-off checklist

Skill	Demonstrated?
Answers with the standard greeting	☐
Places a caller on hold correctly and checks back	☐
Completes a warm transfer	☐
Takes a complete message, reads back the number	☐
Handles a new-customer inquiry with the script	☐
Handles a complaint without escalating unnecessarily	☐
Knows escalation contacts and what needs approval	☐
Knows texting consent and opt-out rules	☐
Knows how 911 works on the business system	☐
Can find a contact's history before calling back	☐

After week one

• Review a few of their recorded calls at the end of weeks two and four. See using call recordings to coach your team.
• Ask them what questions they could not answer; add those to the cheat sheet.
• Update scripts when callers keep asking something new.

Building your one-page cheat sheet

The cheat sheet is the most-used training document you will create. Keep it to one page and include:

• The greeting, word for word
• Extensions directory: names, roles and extensions or ring groups
• Hours and routing: what happens to calls at lunch and after hours
• Top five questions with short answers: hours, service area, price ranges you are comfortable sharing, how to book, how to pay
• What you can promise and what needs approval
• Escalation: who to go to for urgent issues, complaints and anything unusual
• Message template: the seven fields
• Texting rules: consent, opt-out, approved templates, no personal numbers

Update it whenever a new hire asks a question that is not on it. Within a few months it becomes a reliable reference for everyone, not just new staff.

Common training mistakes

• Putting the new hire on the phone on day one without a script. It is stressful for them and inconsistent for callers.
• Training only on the happy path. Role-play difficult callers, wrong numbers and requests outside your services.
• No follow-up after week one. Habits drift. Listening to a few calls at weeks two and four catches problems early.
• Training on the system but not on the business. A new hire who can transfer perfectly but cannot answer "Do you service Brookfield?" will transfer too many calls.

Training with Callata

Callata makes onboarding simple because there is nothing to install: new team members sign in from a browser, allow the microphone, and can also ring their cell with "Ring my cell too." The plan is $99 a month for up to five users, with each additional user at $20 a month, so you know the cost of setting up a trainee's account before they go live. Recorded calls come with transcripts and AI summaries saved to the contact's history, which gives you real examples to train from, and saved templates in the shared texting inbox keep new hires on approved wording. 911 can be dialed directly with no prefix, and the account owner is notified by email when it is.

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