Pros Poll: Change, do you keep it?

M

MooreImpressive

New member
pretty simple: do you keep the change you find under the seats, or in the door panels/cupholders/ashtray? of course, you are going to vacuum up a lot of it from under the seats without even seeing it, so do you go back and clean out the vac at the end of the job? would be interested in hearing how people differ on this. I have always only kept what ends up in my vac, anything within site is removed, rinsed off, and put in a ziplock bag, then laid in the seat after finishing the vehicle. even then, when I do take the time to clean out the change from the vac every so often, its a lot of money. the location I spend most of my time at gets about $50 a month from this, on average. I feel bad about it really, but I also know that most of that under seat coinage is covered in nasty grime, so I am the one that has to glove up and clean it off before taking it to one of those CoinStar type counter machines at the grocery store. it is kind of nice to get $50 in free groceries every month, lol. have never once had a client say anything about missing anything (of course they have no idea whats under their seat), and have gotten MANY clients who have thanked me for keeping and bagging what I do return.
 
Any change that I can see and touch I will put in a ziploc bag and give it back to the customer. Anything that I don't see that gets sucked up in the vac I don't bother returning.
 
I recall one detailer had some bags printed with their logo to store things found and other loose items encountered. It was a good way to remind the customer.
 
I bought these big clear plastic bags from ULine and I put everything I find in the car interior, trunk, under the trunk spare tire cover, etc., in the bag and its on the passenger seat when the vehicle is picked up.
And yes, this includes anything that gets sucked up from the vacuum because I clean out the cloth Metro Vac bag after every Detail..
It's not at all hard or time consuming to clean out the bag and I sleep really good at night.. :)
Dan F
 
MooreImpressive said:
pretty simple: do you keep the change you find under the seats, or in the door panels/cupholders/ashtray? of course, you are going to vacuum up a lot of it from under the seats without even seeing it, so do you go back and clean out the vac at the end of the job? would be interested in hearing how people differ on this. I have always only kept what ends up in my vac, anything within site is removed, rinsed off, and put in a ziplock bag, then laid in the seat after finishing the vehicle. even then, when I do take the time to clean out the change from the vac every so often, its a lot of money. the location I spend most of my time at gets about $50 a month from this, on average. I feel bad about it really, but I also know that most of that under seat coinage is covered in nasty grime, so I am the one that has to glove up and clean it off before taking it to one of those CoinStar type counter machines at the grocery store. it is kind of nice to get $50 in free groceries every month, lol. have never once had a client say anything about missing anything (of course they have no idea whats under their seat), and have gotten MANY clients who have thanked me for keeping and bagging what I do return.
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I'm really OCD when it comes to change. I don't like it and I don't want it. I give all the change I get away, unless someone pays me in rolled change then in that case it goes into a 5-gallon change bucket that I'll never live to see filled.

My logic: I make more money with the time saved not dealing with change than the time spend dealing with it (cleaning sticky coins, rolling it, going to the bank with it, counting it to buy something, etc.). It also makes people happy when you let them keep the change so I look at it like a win-win. I'll admit there's no logic to throwing money away but I just don't want to deal with $0.39 of loose change, someone eventually picks it up anyways.

Autopian's will be happy to know that I've switched to buying everything with a credit card and never looked back (altho I'm also against buying things on credit).

I also don't return can's or bottles now that I have to put them in a machine because it's also counter-productive (tops out at about $25/hr assuming the cans are free). I let my kids and their friends have the cans and bottles to return and it makes them happy and keeps them busy (another win-win)
Note: if I was getting $50 a week in change I probably wouldn't throw it out/give it away.​

How much time does it take you to salvage the $50 in change from the vacuum (is it productive enough to make it worth it)? Doesn't coin star charge like %10?
 
bswombaugh said:
Any change that I can see and touch I will put in a ziploc bag and give it back to the customer. Anything that I don't see that gets sucked up in the vac I don't bother returning.
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This is exactly what I do. I truly believes it helps build trust with your customer.

Bunky said:
I recall one detailer had some bags printed with their logo to store things found and other loose items encountered. It was a good way to remind the customer.
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Now if only I had a logo I would definitely do this.
 
JSFM35X said:
This thread should be called are you honest or not?
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Thanks, I was thinking the same thing.

I don't detail for a full time living, and I pick and choose my clientele so i tend not to get trashy cars, but I don't even throw away post-it notes with scribbles found under a seat. I bundle everything nicely, put it in a gallon ziploc, and I leave everything I find on the passengers floor. Starbucks stir sticks, that kind of thing? It has to be what 99% of folks would reasonably consider trash for me to throw away. Actually got asked one time why I didn't throw away the 5 day old section of newspaper on the passenger seat and the customer understood the response "I had no idea if it was important to you so I left it"

Now, I have a friend that leaves a pre-determined amount of change in his console when he gets his car worked on just to see if who does it is honest.
 
I keep old plastic grocery bags for this purpose. Anything I find gets returned to the owner. I clean my vacuum and extractor after every detail anyway, so unless the car is a mess, it isn't that bad going back through for some loose change that gets sucked up. I think of it this way...maybe your client is testing your honesty and purposely placed some loose change under the seats...but when it comes down to it, it is the right thing to do to return what isn't yours.
 
To clarify....we also have custom bags made with our logo on them to put loose items from the door panel, console, etc, then leave it on the floor when finished. They are nice glossy heavy duty ones, much nicer than the grocery store type. Yes, we use coinstar which, around here, is in all major stores and they do charge 9%. We look at it as the customer probably wouldn't want to take the time to clean the melted gummy bears off of the 78 cents we found under the seat, it's gross to them and not worth their time, so we just bucket them and soak them all at once in boiling water once we have a couple hundred dollars worth, they clean right up, then next time we go shopping somewhere we put them in the counting machine. I'm totally fine paying 9% for the convenience. This is only coins the customer couldn't see, certainly nothing like cup holders or ashtrays.
 
Get an account at TD bank and you get a 9 percent raise on your loot.


MooreImpressive said:
To clarify....we also have custom bags made with our logo on them to put loose items from the door panel, console, etc, then leave it on the floor when finished. They are nice glossy heavy duty ones, much nicer than the grocery store type. Yes, we use coinstar which, around here, is in all major stores and they do charge 9%. We look at it as the customer probably wouldn't want to take the time to clean the melted gummy bears off of the 78 cents we found under the seat, it's gross to them and not worth their time, so we just bucket them and soak them all at once in boiling water once we have a couple hundred dollars worth, they clean right up, then next time we go shopping somewhere we put them in the counting machine. I'm totally fine paying 9% for the convenience. This is only coins the customer couldn't see, certainly nothing like cup holders or ashtrays.
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