Six weeks after the new copier lands, half your staff still walks to the old desktop printer because nobody knows how to make the big machine scan to a folder. The finisher has never been used. Someone prints 40 page reports in color because the default was never changed. You are paying for features nobody touches.
Training is on almost every copier lease quote, usually as a line that says "installation and training included." What that phrase actually buys you varies wildly between dealers, and it is worth pinning down before you sign.
What "Training Included" Usually Means
On a standard office lease, the included training is one on site session on install day, lasting 30 to 60 minutes, delivered by the same tech who set the machine up. It covers loading paper, replacing toner, basic copy and print, and clearing a jam. If you are lucky, the tech walks a couple of people through scan to email.
That is it. It is a hardware orientation, not a workflow class. Dealers price it into the $150 to $650 install charge rather than billing it separately, which is why it is short.
Better dealers offer more, and it is usually available if you ask during negotiation rather than after:
- A second session 30 days out. This is the one that matters most, because by then people have real questions instead of theoretical ones.
- Key operator training. A deeper 2 to 3 hour session for one or two designated people who become the in house go to. Some dealers charge $200 to $500 for this, many will throw it in on a competitive deal.
- Admin training. Walkthrough of the web interface for setting user codes, department billing, address books, and default settings.
- Recorded or vendor hosted courses. Canon, Ricoh, Xerox, Konica Minolta, and Sharp all publish free video libraries for their current lines.
Get It in the Contract, Not the Conversation
Verbal promises about training do not survive turnover. The rep who promised "we will come back any time your team needs a refresher" may not be there in eight months.
Write the specifics into the quote or the service agreement: number of sessions, length, on site or remote, and whether refresher visits during the term are included or billable. A billable training visit runs $95 to $175 per hour plus travel, so an unclear agreement can turn into a $400 invoice for what you thought was covered.
This is the same principle that applies across your whole agreement. Our guide to copier leases with a service agreement covers what belongs in writing and what dealers commonly leave vague.
What to Actually Cover in the Session
Do not let the tech run a generic script. Hand them your list. The features that pay for themselves on a typical office machine:
Scan to email and scan to folder. The single highest value function on a modern multifunction unit, and the one most commonly left unconfigured. Have them set up the address book with your real distribution lists, not a placeholder.
Default settings. Set the machine to black and white, duplex, and standard quality by default. Color pages cost 4 to 9 cents each against 0.6 to 1.5 cents for black and white. On 5,000 pages a month, a bad default is a few hundred dollars of avoidable spend.
User codes and department billing. If you bill clients for copies, or you just want to know which department is burning the color allowance, get this configured on day one. Retrofitting it later is a hassle.
Secure release printing. Especially in law, medical, and HR settings. Nobody should be walking to the tray to collect a printout that has been sitting there for twenty minutes. See secure print release on a copier lease.
The supply and service workflow. Who calls for toner, who calls for service, what the model and serial number are, and where the meter reading lives. Related reading: how copier lease supply replenishment works.
Train the Right Two People, Not Everyone
Group trainings for fifteen people do not work. Attention drifts, nobody takes notes, and two weeks later the collective memory is gone.
The approach that works in real offices: pick two key operators, ideally an office manager and someone from a different floor or department, and train them properly for a couple of hours. Give them the vendor documentation and the dealer's direct service line. Everyone else gets a five minute walkthrough plus a laminated one page cheat sheet taped to the wall next to the machine.
Pick two people, not one. The single trained person will eventually be on vacation the week the finisher jams.
What Most Guides Miss
Training is not really a training problem. It is a service call problem, and that is why it is worth more than it looks.
A large share of copier service calls are not hardware failures. Depending on who you ask in the industry, somewhere between a quarter and a half of calls are user resolvable: a misloaded tray, a jam cleared incorrectly leaving a scrap of paper behind a roller, wrong media weight in the bypass, a driver that reverted after a Windows update. Each of those calls costs you 4 to 24 hours of a machine being down even on a good service agreement.
If your lease is on an all inclusive plan, those wasted calls do not cost you cash directly. They cost you uptime and they burn the goodwill you will need when something genuinely serious breaks. If you are on a per call or time and materials plan, they cost you real money at $95 to $175 an hour.
So the honest return on a two hour key operator session is not "people feel confident." It is fewer avoidable calls, less downtime, and a machine that is actually used the way you are paying for. On a 60 month term at $69 to $850 a month depending on the machine, that is the difference between renting a copier and getting your money's worth from one. Worth reviewing alongside what a copier lease really costs.
One last practical note: schedule the second session before the first one ends. Put a date on the calendar with the tech standing there. "We will reach out in a month" almost never happens, and once the dealer has been paid by the finance company, follow up naturally slows down.
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