Moving house is – fairly famously – one of the most stressful things you can do. Packing your life away, putting everything in the wrong boxes, falling out with your wife; it all takes a toll, and that is before you entrust all your most valuable possessions to a collection of strangers who have none of the attachments to you things that you do.
We have all heard the horror stories about someone who had their TV smashed and their furniture splintered to pieces on the side of the road so how can you avoid all those issues and make sure that you are going to get a company who are really going to look after you?
First and foremost avoid getting quotes over the phone. If you only have a few bits and pieces to shift then perhaps this will be ok but for anything bigger how on earth are they going to know if they have enough people or indeed enough space to get all your stuff from A to B? Get someone round and get a proper quote. If nothing else it will give you a chance to get a feel for how professional they are.
You also need to make sure that you are spending enough. It’s tempting to go cheap with these things but if you want all the blankets and experience required to ensure that your furniture remains scratch free the cheapest option is rarely the best. This has the added bonus of ensuring (particularly with smaller companies) that they show up; frequently customers complain that nobody has shown up and this is usually because they went with the cheapest option and a small company, who were later outbid by another customer on the day.
Some companies offer an hourly rate and as a customer this can seem really quite tempting. A quick job means that you keep your costs down. Excellent. No problems. Except that you are looking at this from the point of view of a customer. As a business you want the maximum amount of money for each job, so if you quote an hourly rate where is the incentive to rush? Far better to take their time and make you pay top dollar. To avoid this, always get a fixed rate price and avoid any nasty surprises further down the road.
However, the biggest thing to check for, as with any professional service is whether or not they are accredited. The British Association of Removers (BAR) is an association which only accepts companies who have been tested and shown to offer a high quality and professional service. If the company is a member of the BAR is a good indicator that they have plenty of experience, conduct training, avoid casual workers and most importantly are still inspected on a regular basis. It’s a great way to ensure that you have some peace of mind and confidence in your removal men and this is important in its own right since it will cut down the stress of worrying.
So there you have it. A lot of it sounds like common sense but you’d be amazed how many people fail to follow logic and instead try and save the cash. In the short term it works but once those repair bills come in the costs can start to mount up so follow this quick and simple guide and you won’t go far wrong.
Man and woman moving boxes into their new home.
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