What if we train them and they leave?

The very best customer-focused companies create a training budget that goes beyond orientation and the first week on the job training. It includes regularly scheduled retraining sessions or a budget for staff to attend corporate or appropriate offsite training sessions, as well. Marketing and advertising get the customer to your company the first time, but service brings them back. So there should be periodic retraining of staff to remind them of what outstanding service should look and feel like to the customer. Sometimes I get pushback from the decision-maker who says to me, “Retraining is too expensive. What if I bring you in to train them and they go to my competitor for fifty cents more an hour.” I tell them that is the wrong question to ask. It is not “What if I train them and they leave?” The question should be “What if I don’t train them and they stay?”