What to do with found changes

In as full service car wash, when you find coins dropped here and there, what is the typical policy? Do you have the employees put the coins in the ashtray? Do you have them put it back where they found it after vaccuming the area? Or do you have them put it on the driver's seat?

At our detail shop we place all items in a vehicle interior in a loose items bag. This includes change.

Imagine how happy and impressed a customer will be when they look through the bag your employees used to place their loose items in and find money in it!

To me, it's part of high quality service, attention to detail, and creating life-long customers.

Hi: at my car washes/detailing centers our policy is to put all coins ( or bills )found in the car over the dashboard, where the customer can easily find these.
Also when other items as phones, I pods, watches etc are found in the car my employees must report these to the customer service attendans, in order to keep the goods in our office and return these to the car owners when they come to pick up their car.
couple of times we have found GUNS inside the vehicles!!!
saludos
Renato

Same as Renato's reply ^

Thank God we're not full service anymore! Forget the change, with people having all kinds of portable electronic devices in, I don't know how you guys find the choir boys to work in your car wash. We want no part of that headahe and liability.

When we were full service and someone would come in and say I had $20 in change in my ashtray and half of its gone. I'd simply tell them. That's terrible, but at least you got one of my good employees." When they'd ask what I meant, I'd reply, "If you had gotten one of my bad employees, all of it would have been gone." They never thought that was funny - in fact they never thought to begin with or they wouldn't have left money out and then given their vehicle to complete strangers - even if they are employees. 99% of the time

I heard there is a full service car wash chain coming to my neck of the woods and that they only hire college graduates! Oh I'm sure they do! Isn't that why people go to college? To be a back window man or maybe if they'r lucky enough, the front.

I can't imagine operating a facility where employees regularly steal!

Maybe I'm a backwoods hick, but my crew does not take items from cars. We utilize the aforememntioned loose items bags and that's that.

If a customer is trusting you with their $20-80k vehicle, what's an iPod and a few bucks in change???

Look at your perceptions and re-evaluate, I think.

I go with Chiefs :) he's right,yo cannt trust any one any more with money or anything valuable, I guess that's why my WIFE counts the quarteres from our DIY car wash :) I do keep the pennies I find in the vacuums and the other day I found a few nickles :)
I guess if I was honest I would have told my wife :(

Best to have uniforms for your employees that do not have pockets. Not a guarantee, but it helps.

Whatis the difference between someone giving you their $20-80K car to clean and an IPOD or a few bucks in change? Well, in the first place, the customer is going to notice immediately if they don't get their $20-80K vehicle back. Secondly, no one considers the I-pod or few bucks in change as valuable until, due to their negligence in securing their property before turing it over to a complete stranger, they come up missing.

Now I will grant you that you are more likely to find more honesty in a rural setting as opposed to an urban one. However, to a man who has a family, or even one that doesn't, who does not know how they are going to get home or hwere their next meal is coming from, that $10 in change in the ash try or electronic device means a lot.

Any operator who lets employees in customers cars needs to immediately inform customers to secure all their valuable before leaving their car. Now you may feel that doing so is in effect telling customers that some employees are dishonest. I approach it from the standpoint, "And lead us not into temptation." For customers to assume that you only hire choir boys is stupid on their part. Not telling them to remove their valuables is negligent on your part. In fact you should give them bags so that they can load their valuble into and take with them until they get their vehicle back.

Hi All:
I have disclaimer signs placed in different parts in the carwash, where we explained to all customers about we are not responsible for any damages etc and also not responsible for all valuble goods that havent been deposit at our offices. also have cameras in the carwash and my employees´ uniform dont have pocket on it...And all of these help lot, avoiding problems with customers.
Im agree that have a full service or detailing shop can be a headache,,,but I love and enjoy what I do for living!!!
Once in a while we may have a small problem with a customer that reclaims a missing CD or phone, and we just tell to customer: come lets check the video from cameras...and if someone appears on screen taking something from your car I will pay for it and we will send that guy to jail,but also if nobody took anything and customer is telling lies about something missing, I will call police and will present charges also as well...
Then by some miracle, suddenly the customer remembers that he forgot the item in some other place:)

saludos from Mexico
Renato

I used to tell customers: even one of the twelve disciples was corrupt and I'm not running a church here. You can trust some of the people, some of the time but not all people, all of the time. When you're operating a busy full serve with 50 employees and 250 different people a year...you've got to be ready to test everyone or anyone. Frequent testing (with fake jewelry, sunglasses and dollar bills) is the only way to keep a large number of employees straight. Cameras are of not assistance on the interior of vehicles, except to tell you who are the suspects.
Our prisons are full of innocent(?) people.

We also had a disclaimer sign that said, we would take responsibility for any valuables identified before the wash. Those items would be written on their ticket.