In short: staff will not stay forever, and neither will customers, yet nobody stops looking after customers because of that. Training is the same. The risk of not training is usually far bigger than the risk of someone leaving.
What not training costs you
One untrained staff member can lose a customer with a single sentence. When a customer once complained that a product was expensive, a staff member replied: "Just dilute it with water, it'll last longer." The owner still does not know it happened.
Customers do not blame the staff member; they blame the business. And an upset customer tends to tell many people. These hidden losses dwarf the cost of a course.
Look at it another way
- Growth depends on people: if you really do not want to train people, you will have to buy more machines, because only machines never walk out.
- Training is the cheapest investment: if a staff member closes a few more sales next month, the course has paid for itself.
- People stay because you care, not because you held back: staff you genuinely develop are more likely to stay and work hard for you. If they leave one day, they leave with a good impression of you.
Three ways to get more from training
- Train before they serve: new staff should not face customers alone until they pass basic training.
- Follow up afterwards: a month later, check whether closing and return rates improved. If not, find out why.
- Link training to promotion: make it clear which courses and results lead to which roles.
Train, train and train again. Money spent on training usually turns out to be the cheapest money you spend.
Adapted from Dave Tan's book How High Should Your Customer Retention Rate Be? (2014, in Chinese), updated for today. About the book
Author: Dr. Dave Tan, DBA — Founder of Vital Design, Doctor of Business Administration (DBA). A business consultant to salons and SMEs since 2003, and author of a book on salon management.
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