Onboarding readiness
Know a new hire is ready before you put them in front of a customer
At a small company the first real conversation is the training. There is no shadow period and no bench. New hires practice the situations their role actually hits, and every attempt is scored so readiness is something you can see.
Onboarding software tells you someone finished the module. It does not tell you they can do the job
A new hire at a 40-person company is in front of a real customer in week one. Nobody has time to sit in on their first ten calls, and the person who would do that shadowing has their own work. So the first real test happens live, and you find out how it went from the customer.
The tooling most companies buy for this measures the wrong thing. An LMS records that someone watched a module and passed a quiz. That is a completion record. It says nothing about whether the person can explain a price increase to someone who is already annoyed, or hold a boundary with a customer pushing for an exception.
The gap is practice with feedback, which is the part that has always required a human with spare hours. Structured practice with feedback improves performance by 41 percent over unstructured preparation, and it is exactly the thing a company without a training function cannot staff.
Role tracks
Scenarios written for the job you actually hired for
Generic communication training does not prepare someone for the specific situations their role hits in month one. Each track covers those situations directly.
Customer service representatives
Explaining a price increase, handling a customer who is already angry when the call connects, and saying no to a refund without escalating it.
Inside sales reps
Running discovery without interrogating, handling the first real objection, and getting to a next step instead of a polite ending.
Field technicians
Explaining a repair the customer did not expect, delivering a bill higher than the quote, and handling someone who is watching over their shoulder.
Front desk and reception
Managing a waiting room that is running behind, handling a walk-in with no appointment, and de-escalating in front of an audience.
New supervisors
Running their first team meeting, assigning work to someone more experienced than they are, and asking for a status update without micromanaging.
Care and support staff
Delivering unwelcome information to a family member, setting a boundary with someone in distress, and escalating without sounding alarmed.
Dispatchers and coordinators
Telling a customer their window slipped, reprioritizing under pressure, and holding a schedule against someone pushing to jump the queue.
Retail associates
Handling a return outside policy, managing two customers at once, and recovering after a mistake the customer noticed.
How onboarding readiness runs
01
Assign the role track
Pick the scenario set that matches the job you actually hired for. Each track covers the situations that role hits in its first month.
02
The new hire practices before the real thing
They run each scenario against an AI persona that behaves like a real customer or stakeholder. Confused, impatient, skeptical, or already annoyed.
03
Every attempt is scored
Clarity, confidence, pacing, engagement, and persuasiveness on a consistent rubric, so the second week is comparable to the first.
04
You see readiness before the customer does
The dashboard shows who is ready for live contact and who needs another few reps, which is a decision you currently make on gut feel.
The measurement is the product. Practice volume is what produces it
Every session is scored against the same rubric from the first attempt to the twentieth, so improvement is visible and readiness is a number rather than an impression. That data accumulates as a byproduct of the practice itself, with no extra administrative work.
41%
better performance
Structured practice with feedback improves interview and conversation performance by 41 percent against unstructured preparation.
6x
more practice reps
Participants get roughly six times the practice repetitions compared with staff-led role-play, because the constraint on staff time disappears.
100%
of sessions scored
Every session is auto-evaluated on the same five-dimension rubric, so nothing depends on who happened to be observing.
Common questions
How is this different from the onboarding software we already have?
Onboarding platforms and LMS tools track completion. They prove someone opened a module and passed a quiz, which is attendance rather than readiness. Neither tells you whether the person can hold the conversation the job requires. This measures the conversation itself, scored the same way every time, so readiness is something you can see rather than assume.
Do we need to write the scenarios ourselves?
No. The role tracks on this page ship with scenarios already written. On Growth and above you can add scenarios specific to your products, your customers, and the situations your team actually hits.
How long does it take a new hire to get through a track?
Most tracks run six to ten scenarios at five to twelve minutes each, plus feedback. Spread across a first week that is well under an hour a day, and it can run alongside whatever shadowing you already do.
We hire one or two people at a time, not in classes. Does this still fit?
Yes, and that is the more common pattern at this size. Tracks are assigned per person whenever they start, so there is no cohort to fill and no scheduling. That is the main practical difference from cohort-based onboarding programs.
What does this actually change?
The measurable target is time to productivity and first-year retention. Median time to productivity ran 65 days in 2025, fully loaded onboarding costs run $3,000 to $7,000 per hire once manager time and lost early output are counted, and a failed first-year hire costs roughly $14,900. Those ranges come from L&D industry aggregations rather than primary research, so treat them as directional. The mechanism is not in dispute: practice before live contact means fewer avoidable early failures.
Is this priced for a company that hires six people a year?
Yes. Team Plans start at $290 a month for up to 25 seats and include all three tracks, so the same subscription covers onboarding, manager conversations, and promotion interviews. Companies that hire in large waves instead can buy a Cohort Pack.
The other two tracks
Manager conversation practice
Let first-time managers rehearse performance feedback, denied raises, PIPs, and terminations before the real thing.
Promotion interview prep
Prepare internal candidates properly so the people you pass over stay with you.
Ramp cost calculator
Free tool. What the gap between hiring someone and having them fully productive costs you in a year.
Corporate pricing
Published plans from $290 a month. All three tracks included at every tier.
Ready to see who is actually ready?
Tell us the roles you hire for most and how many people you bring on in a year. We will come back with the tier that fits and a 30-minute walkthrough.