What are consumers thinking?

[imported_Automania1]

Do consumers believe they can destroy/thrash their vehicles turn them into garbage can on wheels and then expect to have it cleaned thoroughly real cheap? .. is this problem being created by detailers who are unwilling to charge consumers the real cost of cleaning their cars ..where is this thinking coming from?

 

[togwt]

The problem lies partly in a detailers mind; he wants’ to do the best detail he can, regardless of what its cost him; many have no idea buisness management, but they are very good at what they do; but a business needs to be profitable to exist. No real buisness can compete on this basis, many so called detailers are working for less than their costs



This industry struggles to standardize what a detail consists of, so you have ads that read “Full detail $200”- Detail $150, and etc

So some potential customers have a mind-set that thinks ‘so what if I trash my / lease vehicle, $150 or so will make it like new again’



Education, education, education (we need to become educated and we also need to educate our customers)

 

[Nth Degree]

I think it is the same mentality that makes people think they can eat whatever they want, drink, smoke, etc. and then just stop to become suddenly healthy. Is ignorance and laziness. And those budget detailers are like the "magic" diet pills.



I often explain to people that the car is going to cost you money one way or another. You can neglect it, live with the dirty look and lose money on the resale, you can neglect it, live with the dirty look, spend a ton of money making it look nice for someone else to enjoy or you can spend the time/money maintaining it, enjoy the benefit of having a nice looking car and retain a higher resale value. Sure, it may cost a little more to maintain but you are getting to enjoy the clean car for that price. If a regular car wash only cost you $1 would you do it more often?

 

[David Fermani]

It's all about how cheap you can price yourself to hack up your client's cars and still call yourself a professional. Seems like you get all the live ones Gina?

 

[215Detailing]

The problem lies partly in a detailers mind; he wants’ to do the best detail he can, regardless of what its cost him; many have no idea buisness management, but they are very good at what they do; but a business needs to be profitable to exist. No real buisness can compete on this basis, many so called detailers are working for less than their costs



This industry struggles to standardize what a detail consists of, so you have ads that read “Full detail $200”- Detail $150, and etc

So some potential customers have a mind-set that thinks ‘so what if I trash my / lease vehicle, $150 or so will make it like new again’



Education, education, education (we need to become educated and we also need to educate our customers)

What about PAINT CORRECTION PRICING some consumers assume DETAILING is using a BUFFER/POLISHER outside of WAXING I say Detailing is a THOROUGH CLEANNG but PAINT CORRECTION is refining/removing DEFECT from the paint and cost from $30.-$50. per hour

 

[togwt]

Sure but does the average consume understand exactly what 'Paint Correction' is, 80%+ customers just want a clean, shiny vehicle

 

[imported_Automania1]

What I am seeing are completely ridiculous consumer expectations... Imagine not cleaning your vehicle for many years and it is a disaster... and you are upset it does not take an hour to clean because you have no time to wait... and you only want to pay $50.00 ...

Sure but does the average consume understand exactly what 'Paint Correction' is, 80%+ customers just want a clean, shiny vehicle

 

[RaskyR1]

Do consumers believe they can destroy/thrash their vehicles turn them into garbage can on wheels and then expect to have it cleaned thoroughly real cheap? .. is this problem being created by detailers who are unwilling to charge consumers the real cost of cleaning their cars ..where is this thinking coming from?

Those are the ones I have no problem sending down the road to local high volume shops. You can try explaining the difference to them until you are blue in the face but they simply refuse to pay the kind of money it takes to do it right. I contribute it partially to low ball hack detailers and places like Groupon.



Personally, based on my own clients, I find the ones who are willing to spend the money to do it right actually keep their cars pretty clean and in relatively good shape. It's usually the ones that bark about the price tag that require the most work IMO.

 

[IHA Mark]

I think the problem might not be with consumers... but with us. We think all consumers should want and be interested in paying 250+ for a detail when that is simply not the case. Most people don't care about swirls, engine bays, or a lot of the smaller things we "professional" detailers pride ourselves upon.



Most people are more interested in having the interior super clean, and the exterior "shiny". Why do you think so many what we consider "hack job" detail shops that are extremely busy?



There is a local detail shop in my area, arguably the busiest, that does NO machine polishing at all. All they do is wax.



Maybe we need to stop expecting all consumers to start wanting our services, and start focusing on either building our niche clientele, or expanding ourselves to more "general" detailing in order to pay the bills.

 

[RaskyR1]

I think the problem might not be with consumers... but with us. We think all consumers should want and be interested in paying 250+ for a detail when that is simply not the case. Most people don't care about swirls, engine bays, or a lot of the smaller things we "professional" detailers pride ourselves upon.



Most people are more interested in having the interior super clean, and the exterior "shiny". Why do you think so many what we consider "hack job" detail shops that are extremely busy?



There is a local detail shop in my area, arguably the busiest, that does NO machine polishing at all. All they do is wax.



Maybe we need to stop expecting all consumers to start wanting our services, and start focusing on either building our niche clientele, or expanding ourselves to more "general" detailing in order to pay the bills.

I get that, at least for the full time guys, but To Gina's point, she is referring to people who trash their vehicles to the point you don't want to get inside without a rubber suit on, and then they expect it cleaned spotless for almost no money at all and they want it done yesterday. We simply have to charge more for cars like that or we loose money.

 

[togwt]

[Maybe we need to stop expecting all consumers to start wanting our services, and start focusing on either building our niche clientele, or expanding ourselves to more "general" detailing in order to pay the bills]



This...

 

[Thomas Dekany]

In this case I think you are missing the point. There is a difference between us expecting top dollar clients only and what Gina is saying. I know Gina personally, heck, she detailed my car (paint correction) 12 years ago.



If Gina complains, it IS very bad. So I agree with her, who are these people that expect "perfection" for chump change.

I think the problem might not be with consumers... but with us. We think all consumers should want and be interested in paying 250+ for a detail when that is simply not the case. Most people don't care about swirls, engine bays, or a lot of the smaller things we "professional" detailers pride ourselves upon.



Most people are more interested in having the interior super clean, and the exterior "shiny". Why do you think so many what we consider "hack job" detail shops that are extremely busy?



There is a local detail shop in my area, arguably the busiest, that does NO machine polishing at all. All they do is wax.



Maybe we need to stop expecting all consumers to start wanting our services, and start focusing on either building our niche clientele, or expanding ourselves to more "general" detailing in order to pay the bills.

 

[IHA Mark]

In this case I think you are missing the point. There is a difference between us expecting top dollar clients only and what Gina is saying. I know Gina personally, heck, she detailed my car (paint correction) 12 years ago.



If Gina complains, it IS very bad. So I agree with her, who are these people that expect "perfection" for chump change.

I get your point but look at it from the consumers perspective... many people do not regularly get their vehicles detailed or even know what to expect when they have their vehicle detailed. To us, the vehicle might be trashed, but to them that is just how they roll. Maybe we should be more focused on our clients expectations when making appointments?



I can only speak for myself, but when I'm on the phone with a client and I hear the dreaded "I want it to look brand new", that is RED FLAG time. This person has obviously never had their vehicle detailed, or if they have were not happy with the last business that did it.



This is why I am VERY specific when telling them what comes and what does NOT come with my packages. All unhappiness comes from failed expectations...



Edit:



When it comes to getting a trashed out vehicle, I always tell the people that help me that when you offer packages, you have to take the good with the bad. If you are wanting to avoid trashed out vehicles, set your prices by estimate only, then simply price the clients what you want for the trouble.



If I didn't have the trash pile details, I would lose at least 25% of my business. Some of them are excellent clients too, just let their vehicles get messy.



Something to think about.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

When it comes to getting a trashed out vehicle, I always tell the people that help me that when you offer packages, you have to take the good with the bad. If you are wanting to avoid trashed out vehicles, set your prices by estimate only, then simply price the clients what you want for the trouble.

Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense. Why should you have to bust your hump for half of your typical hourly earnings on nasty jobs that take twice as long to get to the same result? Are you afraid of telling your customers with trashed vehicles how much (extra) work it's going to take to restore it?



In this business, even with "packages," you should ALWAYS be quoting final prices "by estimate only" since no two vehicles are going to be in exactly the same condition or need the same amount of work. Your advertised package pricing should be prefaced by "Starting at..." or you should expressly state "excessively dirty vehicles subject to a $___ up-charge."

 

[LeMarque]

Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense. Why should you have to bust your hump for half of your typical hourly earnings on nasty jobs that take twice as long to get to the same result? Are you afraid of telling your customers with trashed vehicles how much (extra) work it's going to take to restore it?



In this business, even with "packages," you should ALWAYS be quoting final prices "by estimate only" since no two vehicles are going to be in exactly the same condition or need the same amount of work. Your advertised package pricing should be prefaced by "Starting at..." or you should expressly state "excessively dirty vehicles subject to a $___ up-charge."

Agree 100%



Also, the word will get around by word of mouth and you'll be getting more and more trashed out vehicles wanting the end result to be 'like new'; I think.

 

[David Fermani]

 

[RaskyR1]

Awesome!!! :rockon1:

 

[GoGTIgo]

The baseline issue is simple, people do not understand, and detailers nationwide don't speak as one, and therefore nobody knows what a "detail" is.



I am not a detailer of any sort. However, my attention to detail and general knowledge of people helped get me into the Navy years ago. With that, I still find it hard to get on the same page with detailers nationwide. I have lived in 11 states and owned a few cars, and every place I've sought out a pro detailer, and everytime I feel like its a guessing game, even though I feel that I have been direct and straightforward on what I want done detail by detail, and yet a "detail" means so many things to so many people.



Prior to the military, I used to build and work on computers. People would come in and expect a shiny new computer free of bugs and dust, in 30 minutes, without losing any of their settings, all for less than $50 and they wanted it done on their ancient systems. Not possible. People could not understand that while I'm not exactly breaking a sweat, I would charge more, or why it would take time.



It's like everything else, people misunderstand the past, and therefore skew the present and future...



Back in the olden days, computers and cars lasted longer, therefore, new cars and computer should as well. It simple isn't the case. Cars and computers are now in a disposable age and the mass media hammers that into the consumer. It's not working/looking like you want it, don't have it repaired or fixed, just get a new one to replace it and throw the old away.



Back to detailing. I've been in business for myself, and it's a pain to go against the local big shop, that is fast and not really good, but peoples' mentalities have switched and small business owners are on the losing end.



Case in point, I have a thread about my new month old car having water spots. I found a pro detailer, had references, photos of prior work, and charged accordingly, all good signs. I told him, I want it pristine and better than what I would see at a car show basically. It was ok, sure, no problem, this and that is the process, and it will cost you accordingly, I said, do it, knowing full well the labor intensive work and the price point that needed to be charged...



The spots are still there, so in the end the corner car wash shop was no worse when it comes down to brass tacks. Now, I know that water spots are a *****, but the average consumer would be furious that they spent a couple hundred plus a few more hundred dollars on a car that could have went to the local car wash/latte/dry cleaner/yogurt/newspaper shop and spent $60...that's the issues pro detailers and small business owners dealing with...

 

[IHA Mark]

Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense. Why should you have to bust your hump for half of your typical hourly earnings on nasty jobs that take twice as long to get to the same result? Are you afraid of telling your customers with trashed vehicles how much (extra) work it's going to take to restore it?



In this business, even with "packages," you should ALWAYS be quoting final prices "by estimate only" since no two vehicles are going to be in exactly the same condition or need the same amount of work. Your advertised package pricing should be prefaced by "Starting at..." or you should expressly state "excessively dirty vehicles subject to a $___ up-charge."

I actually agree with you on this, but I see it from a different perspective. On my basic details a really dirty vehicle does not add an excessive amount of time to the total job, and I am still in the growth process in my business with my clientele. I try not to market to price shoppers, but I'm also not yet at the point with my business where I can turn away business if it is an undesirable job.



I get that I should get paid for my efforts, but in a very competitive area when it comes to volume detailing, I don't really see how upcharging will improve my client base, when other local competitors will match my price and take on the job.



If I had so many high end clients with nice cars that I didn't have to take these details, I would be totally on board with what you are saying, but I am not there yet, so still will be taking the good with the bad.

 

[imported_Automania1]

I do not think any point is being missed... we do not have to speak with one voice for any reasonable person to understand that if you want something thoroughly cleaned (that by the way is the requirement of the customer) it is going to take time and cost money not $50.00 or take 1 hour...



It takes the average person 1 hour to do laundry.. usually clean clothes.. how are you going to clean a dirty mini-van in the same amount time... so there is some unreasonable thinking processes going on and unreasonable expectations ...

I actually agree with you on this, but I see it from a different perspective. On my basic details a really dirty vehicle does not add an excessive amount of time to the total job, and I am still in the growth process in my business with my clientele. I try not to market to price shoppers, but I'm also not yet at the point with my business where I can turn away business if it is an undesirable job.



I get that I should get paid for my efforts, but in a very competitive area when it comes to volume detailing, I don't really see how upcharging will improve my client base, when other local competitors will match my price and take on the job.



If I had so many high end clients with nice cars that I didn't have to take these details, I would be totally on board with what you are saying, but I am not there yet, so still will be taking the good with the bad.