How to train a new team member to work alongside your AI agent
When you hire someone new, they are not only learning your business. They are learning to share the customer chats with an AI agent that already answers many of them. Done well, the agent takes the routine questions and your new starter spends their time on the conversations that need a person. Done badly, they reply over the agent, miss hand-overs or undo its answers. This guide gives you a two-week plan, the five things to explain on day one, practice exercises, a sample note to add to your brief, and the mistakes new starters make most.
The five things to explain on day one
- What the agent does. It answers customer messages on your connected accounts, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and email, using the facts in your business brief. It is an AI agent, not a person, and customers can be told that if they ask.
- What the agent does not do. It hands complaints, refunds and anything on your hand-over list to a person. It does not take phone calls.
- How a hand-over works. When a chat is handed to a person, Spaces keeps the agent out of it until it is handed back. The new starter replies in that chat as normal, from the business's own account.
- Who owns what. Chats can be given to a named person on the team and tagged, such as order, booking or follow up, so everyone can see who is handling which conversation.
- What they must never do. Reply in a chat the agent is still handling without taking it over first, change the business brief without asking, or start new chats with people who have not written in.
Show them the brief
The business brief is the best training document you have. It already holds your hours, prices, common questions, tone, what never to promise and when to hand a chat over. Ask your agent to show it, print it or share it, and have the new starter read it on their first morning.
Then ask them a few questions from it, the way a customer would: "how much is a gel manicure?", "can I bring my dog?", "what if I need to cancel?". If they find an answer that is unclear or out of date, that is useful too. A fresh pair of eyes is often the quickest way to find gaps.
Week one: shadowing
| Day | What they do | What you check |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Read the brief and the voice sheet. Read ten recent chats the agent handled. | That they can explain what the agent does and when it hands over |
| 2 | Read every hand-over from the last week and how each was answered. | That they understand why each one went to a person |
| 3 | Draft replies to handed-over chats. You send them. | Facts, tone and length |
| 4 | Reply to handed-over chats themselves, while you read along. | That they hand chats back when they finish |
| 5 | Run the weekly review with you. | That they spot a weak reply and suggest a fix for the brief |
If you want extra safety during this week, ask your AI agent to hold replies as drafts, and nothing goes out until it is approved. That also lets your new starter see every answer the agent writes, which is a quick way to learn what a good reply looks like.
Week two: their own chats
- Ask the agent to give certain hand-overs to them by name, such as all order problems or all wedding enquiries.
- Have them check their chats at set times, such as every two hours, and say so in the hand-over message the agent sends.
- Ask them to tag each chat they finish, so you can see what kinds of problems they handled.
- Ask them to suggest one improvement to the brief by the end of the week.
A practice hand-over
Run a practice before they handle a real complaint. Message your own business account from another phone with a made-up problem, and let them pick it up. Names and details are examples.
| Who | Message |
|---|---|
| Customer (you, testing) | My order arrived but two of the plant pots are cracked |
| Agent | Sorry about that. I've passed this to Jess, who will reply here within two hours. |
| Jess | Hi, Jess here. Sorry about the pots. Could you send a photo of the cracks? I'll send replacements today. |
| Customer (you, testing) | [photo] |
| Jess | Thanks, that's all I need. Two new pots go out today. Anything else I can help with? |
Afterwards, check that Jess asked the agent to hand the chat back, tagged it, and did not promise anything outside your policy. Then run one more practice where the "customer" is angry, so the first real one is not a surprise.
A note for the brief
Add your new starter to the hand-over section of the brief, so the agent knows who to pass what to. Names and details are examples.
Team
- Jess (started 9 November): order problems, damaged items, returns.
Say "I've passed this to Jess, who will reply here within two hours."
Email jess@example.com with the customer's name and one line.
- Me (Alex): complaints, refunds over £50, wholesale, anything Jess
is unsure about.
- Jess works Tuesday to Saturday. On Sunday and Monday, hand her chats
to me instead.Include the days they work. A hand-over to someone who is not in until Tuesday leaves a customer waiting, and the agent's promise of "within two hours" becomes untrue.
Their own AI agent, or not
Some teams give each person their own AI agent connected to Spaces. Others keep one agent and let staff reply from the business's own apps on their phone or computer. Both work.
If you do connect a second agent for your new starter, every agent gets its own permissions and its own pause, and you can limit which accounts it may use. Keep the facts in the business brief in Spaces, which every agent reads, rather than in each agent's own notes, so there is only one version of your prices.
What if they disagree with the agent?
Sooner or later your new starter will read a reply and think the agent got it wrong. Sometimes they will be right, and sometimes the agent will have followed the brief exactly and the brief is what needs changing. Either way, it is useful information.
| If they notice | Ask them to |
|---|---|
| A wrong fact in a reply | Correct it with the customer, then tell you so the brief can be fixed |
| A reply that is right but sounds odd | Suggest a better example reply for the voice sheet |
| A chat the agent should have handed over | Take it over, deal with it, and suggest adding the topic to the hand-over list |
| A rule in the brief they think is wrong | Raise it with you, rather than working around it in their own replies |
Make it clear that spotting problems is part of the job, not a criticism of the setup. New starters see things you stopped noticing months ago.
What new starters get wrong
- Replying in a chat the agent is still handling. Take the chat over first, so the agent stays out of it.
- Forgetting to hand chats back, so customers who later ask simple questions wait for a person.
- Correcting a customer's answer but not telling anyone, so the brief never gets fixed.
- Changing the brief directly. Keep one person in charge of edits, and have others suggest changes.
- Promising faster replies than the team can keep.
- Messaging people who have not written in, such as past customers, from the business account.
When they leave
- Ask your agent for every chat owned by them or handed to them, and give each one to someone else.
- Remove them from the hand-over section of the brief.
- If they had their own AI agent connected, revoke it, so its key and sign-in stop working.
- Change any passwords they knew for your business accounts, and reconnect accounts in Spaces if a platform signs them out.
Summing up
Explain five things on day one: what the agent does, what it does not, how hand-overs work, who owns which chat, and what never to do. Spend the first week shadowing and the second week on their own chats, with practice hand-overs before real ones. Put them in the brief by name, with their working days, and keep one person in charge of changing it.
Pricing
FAQ
Does my new starter need their own AI agent?
No. They can reply from your business's own WhatsApp, Instagram or inbox, in chats handed to them. Some teams do give each person an agent, and each one then gets its own permissions and pause.
How do I stop them replying over the agent?
Teach them to take a chat over first, or to reply only in chats handed to them. Once a chat is handed to a person, Spaces keeps the agent out of it until it is handed back.
Should they be allowed to change the business brief?
It is safer to keep one person in charge of edits and let others suggest changes. That stops two versions of the same rule ending up in the brief.
How long does training take?
Most new starters are comfortable within two weeks: a week of shadowing and drafting, and a week handling their own chats with you checking. Trades with more hand-overs, such as clinics, may need longer.
How does the agent know which chats to give them?
Name them in the hand-over section of your business brief, with the kinds of chats they handle and the days they work. The agent hands those chats to them and tells the customer who will reply.
What should happen when they are off?
Say in the brief who takes their hand-overs on their days off. Otherwise customers wait for someone who is not there.
What do I do when they leave?
Move their chats to someone else, remove them from the brief, revoke any AI agent they had, and change passwords they knew.