You go online and search ‘Moving Companies.’ You get back hundreds of results. How do you determine which ones are good and which ones are not. You could assume that if they are listed higher in the search results, then they must be good. But this won’t work because the search results are not always a good indicator of what is good.
You also could try review sites. There are free and paid sites you can look through to try and get a feel for what a company is really like. The problem with this is, a lot of people don’t leave reviews. Also, review sites can be gamed by unscrupulous companies to make it look like they have done an excellent job.
If you have friends and family that have recently made a move, you can ask them who they used. But how many of us have close friends and family that have just moved.
More than likely, after you do an initial search, you are going to be left with a list of moving companies that you know absolutely nothing about. So, how do you determine which ones are good and which ones are not.
- Have a local office
- Website
- Timely response
- Offer quotes
- Accept multiple forms of payment
- Offer references
Have a local office
Any good company is going to have a local office that you can visit. If you contact a company and they say they are located out of state or don’t allow outside visitors, you should not do business with them.
Once you confirm they have a local office, you should visit it. You will be able to learn a lot about the company when you go to their office. By looking at the outside and inside of the building, you can see how they treat their own belongings. If everything is shabby, you can expect they won’t think much of your stuff when they are handling it. On the other hand, if everything is taken care of well, you can hope they will handle your things with the same care.
Website
Every real company should have a website. If a moving company doesn’t have a website, you should for another company. This is not to be judgmental. But, you have to ask yourself, “Why don’t they have a site?” If they can’t afford one, then you definitely don’t want to do business with them.
The website can also be an indicator of the quality they offer. If the site is broken or just not designed well, you can assume that they don’t pay attention to details. When someone if moving you stuff, you need them to pay attention to details.
A word of warning, the testimonials on a website or that they company presents to you on paper are selected by the company. This means they are only showing what they want you to see.
Timely response
If they don’t respond to you when it comes to the little things, like returning phone calls, they won’t respond when it comes to delivering your furniture. You need a company that is punctual. You need to get them to commit to a schedule and guarantee they will keep it.
Offer quotes
All good companies offer quotes. You need to know how much it cost before you make a decision. One of the best ways to do this is to get quotes from multiple companies. If the company you are thinking about using is higher than the other, ask them why. They may have valid reasons for being high. If they reasons a not good, you will have to decide is it worth it to pay more for their services.
On the flip side, you don’t want to choose a company base solely on price. This could get you in a world of trouble.
Whichever way you decide to go, you want to make sure you know all of the cost before signing a contract. You need everything spelled out so that there is nothing left unknown to you or them. You may want to have an attorney look over the moving contract before signing it.
Accept multiple forms of payment
If a company says they only accept cash, you don’t want to do business with them. All real moving companies have bank accounts and can accept checks. If they say they don’t accept checks because they can’t verify them, they are lying. All checks can be validated. If a company is worried about that, they can use a validation service that guarantees the check or they can wait for the check to clear before they will move.
If you turn your cash over to someone that you have not thoroughly verified, you may never see it again.
Offer references
One of the best ways to determine how good a company works is to ask for references. You want to get references for three people that were satisfied and three people that were not satisfied. If they company says they don’t give out references, then they have not done their due diligence to make sure they can provide you with good, independent reviews.
Choosing a moving company is a big deal. You will spend a good bit of time and money with them. More importantly, you are going to trust them with moving all of your belonging in and out of you new home. Choosing the wrong company could end up costing you significantly. Choosing the right company will make you life, during your move, a whole lot easier.
Take your time. Do some good research. Ask as many questions as you need to. Only after you are satisfied with all of the answers give, should you move forward with hiring a moving company.