Not literally, but figuratively.
Now, you might wonder what this has to do with the main theme of this blog, which is about CRM and customer experience. It has, believe me.
Some of you might know that I just relocated from the Seattle area to the Charleston area, so pretty much once across the country. Moving house is a big endeavor, but not necessarily a complicated one. In its simplest terms it involves packing stuff, potentially storing stuff, transporting stuff, and unpacking stuff. As a family of five tends to have a lot of stuff, it is a good idea to hire the services of a moving company to take care of all the logistics. Moving companies take care of most of the work, normally minus the considerable effort of unpacking a few hundred boxes. But usually, their base services cover the disassembly, packing, and normally also the reassembly of furniture, minus some possible exclusions that normally are explicitly mentioned.
There are roughly two types of moving companies, brokers that act as a main contractor and subcontract the job to third parties, and those who have own operations, either directly or via a network of companies. Regularly used terms of payment are half at packaging and half on delivery, sometimes combined with a more or less substantial downpayment at the time of signing the contract.
As it is with all businesses, it also pays off to do some research.
Which we did, settling on one of the companies with the best reputation. After all, we have done several intercontinental moves before, the last one a few years ago from Germany to the Seattle area. Why is that interesting? Because that move involved transportation not only across the Atlantic, but also across the United States – pretty much what needed to happen now, just in the opposite direction.
The experience
And heck were we in for a ride. The first thing was a sticker shock. At almost $24,500 US, this move was considerably more expensive than the considerably longer one mentioned above – by about a third. But hey, there has been inflation and so on. The salesperson who did the quote made a competent impression though, also highlighting the advantages of using their services as opposed to the considerably cheaper brokers. His main emphasis was on reliable, high-quality service, delivered through own employees, in particular the drivers, instead of random contractors. And premium service has its price, right?
Contracting
After we thought that we have found the right partner for our move, the signature process went incredibly fast, using an iPad and digital signatures. Hey, a sign of digitalization in a very analogue industry.
Just that this was used to rush the customer, with the obvious result. Key clauses and formulations, that appear all of the sudden, do not get due attention, the main examples being one that makes the customer expected delivery date the first date of a 3-week window. “Oh yes, if we know in advance, we strive for delivery at that day but cannot guarantee it”. The list of liability exclusions appears straightforward, but upon closer inspection – which happened only later – is basically excluding all liability they could face, for most of the rest the first thing that it is asked for by the team is a liability waiver …
The formulation is around the packaging service excludes unpacking without explicitly saying it. But the firm will not feel liable for damages if the customer unpackages the box. Extra liability insurance is prohibitively expensive, which should have been another red flag. So is the removal of all packaging debris – which now fills a double garage. But hey, in best American manner, I can park my car in the driveway.
The agreed upon plan was packaging our belongings, storing them for a while, transporting them to Charleston and deliver them, with the planned delivery date, i.e., the day of moving into the new house, being communicated as soon as possible. This happened on June 25, after the packaging process, which took place on May 28. The communicated move-in day was July 21.
Packaging
Packing our belongings was supposed to take three days. Ultimately, it took one. Sounds good? Not really, because all of the sudden, there is a need for two hotel rooms for a couple of days. Unplanned, unwanted additional cost. Reliability includes the adherence to agreements, not unilaterally changing them. Else, the team appeared quite meticulous. Everything, well, nearly everything, got disassembled as needed and boxed, including some stuff that shouldn’t have been, which was communicated to the team …
All boxes got stickers with a barcode, so that the total number of boxes can be accounted for at the time of delivery. Another sign of digitalization. Not too bad, one would think.
Do you find the flaw?
There is no evidence of what is in the boxes. Yes, they have a handwritten note that indicates the original room, but who is to tell that this is also what is in the box? Spoiler alert: No one.
An example: I have two scuba regulators. They have been stored next to each other. At the time of writing this, I found only one … unceremoniously and haphazardly dropped into the box. For those who don’t know, a scuba regulator easily costs several thousand dollars.
So, now the house’s contents are loaded into two trucks, and it comes to the next series of signatures on the iPad that the customer gets rushed through. Closer inspection would have revealed that we apparently have two IKEA beds which will not be reassembled. We do not have IKEA beds … Many items are marked as “scratched” without complete evidence. For some, they attached photos, which usually is a good idea to take evidence.
Half of the payment was due now, which I considered fair enough. The credit card process went smoothly.
Transportation
Now, the company knew our expected move-in date, which it obviously treated as the start of the three-week delivery window that we “agreed upon”. Well, formally we did, so our fault. The interesting question is whether it would have been possible to negotiate it away, given that the whole contracting process didn’t show any evidence of the contract being negotiable AT ALL. Even better, when asking for an ETA, there was no possibility to get one before the driver arrived at the warehouse in the Seattle area at some unknown time – at least unknown to us, since we never got any information besides “next week”, shortly before we arrived in Charleston on July 20. Yes, you heard that right. Storage happened 3,500 miles away from the delivery area. From a reliability perspective, this is not the smart move, but it probably removes one need for a second unloading process, as our belongings have not been put into a long-haul transporter at this time. It is simply cheaper.
The cynic in me interpreted “next week” as the last day of that week. Sure enough, the driver arrived even one day later. This was, when we received an email that the things are on route. During delivery he confirmed that he picked our belongings on July 28. However, all of the sudden, the payment on delivery needed to be either cash or a money order. No cheque, no credit card. Payment, of course, is due before unloading.
And yay, the driver will announce himself one day before arrival. Still, black box in between.
Plus, there is the ominous information that the rig is about 75 ft long and needs a stretch of 100 ft in front of our property. We live on a straight road in a residential neighborhood, so no problem.
Or so we thought.
Sure enough, on August 4 we get a call from the driver announcing himself for the next day. Plus announcing an additional surprise fee of $3,000 US as he needs to repack our belongings into two smaller trucks as he claimed impracticability of getting his rig into our street. As if the delivery address hadn’t been known long before. Was there any choice than to swallow this? Plus, there is the looming section in the contract that says that if we do not accept delivery, it will be auctioned 15 days after the announced delivery date.
And yeah, good news, the confirmation that they “will reassemble your furniture and place in your room of choice” along with the remainder that the trash remains on site. They could put it into our trash bin, though … remember, three hundred odd boxes.
Why did the transport that long? Because the truck broke down in Montana, according to the driver, which gave them a two and a half days stopover. Reliability?
So, off to the bank and get $15,000 dollars and change.
Delivery
Sure enough, on August 5, we got a call that the delivery would not happen on this day. The reason? A thunderstorm in North Charleston. Well, there have been thunderstorms around, so in dubio pro reo.
So, August 6, it is. Around a quarter to 12 we get the call, that things are repacked in smaller trucks and that we can expect them to arrive in half an hour.
Which turned into almost two.
As announced the process started with counting a wad of cash, $15,069 US on an open balance of now $15,068.28 US to be precise. Btw, there was no indication of returning the change, which shows a business attitude. Not that 72 ct. hurt me.
The next thing was that there are two “IKEA beds” which will not get reassembled as per the notes in the documentation. Sigh.
The process started. And it appeared to be smooth.
Until.
Until there was the bed frame that was big enough to warrant them to ask for a liability waiver to move it into the room of choice.
Boxes and wrappings piled up in various rooms, some stuff starting to get reassembled. One after another the crew disappeared as “the job has been done”, presumably having been paid their wages by the driver.
Not without asking for a tip, though. And after leaving behind quite some known damage, plus some as per yet unknown damage, as by far not all boxes are unpackages.
Until only the driver and his wife remained. And some less than assembled furniture. An IKEA desk – yeah, there is one remaining piece of IKEA in my house. “We do not do IKEA” is what I got told. A shelf. “We do not do shelves”. A Peloton. “I cannot find the screen”. A garden umbrella. Well, this one is impossible to assemble for one single person. But still: “We will reassemble your furniture and place in your room of choice”.
As an additional complication, they allow to file exactly one claim. And the missing assembly is to be part of this claim. Not all our belongings are unboxed and the crew was good enough to bury some under lots of packaging. Looks like I’ll be without a desk for some time …
The moving industry is broken
So, all in all an utterly unpleasant and very expensive experience. There is very poor communication – actually the dispatch person we emailed with back and forth regarding an ETA consistently sounded like a pre generative AI chatbot. This shows either an unwillingness or an inability, which could be caused by lacking internal communication or by an inability to plan and manage their long haul and feeder networks. This planning can be done, believe me. My wife has a PhD in this topic, and apparently companies in other industries can do this, too. After all, the company should know where its trucks are at all times. Is this perfect? no. Will the customer understand delays if there is regular communication? Of course, they will.
What we have experienced here is a classic overselling combined with what I consider the unwillingness to deliver on promise. The moving industry is not an industry that enjoys a lot of repeat business, on the contrary. Which is exactly at the core of the problem. Combined with a reputation management that focuses on putting the blame on the customer in case of bad reviews, this demonstrates a far less than customer-focused operation, but one that focuses on short term gains, this is not prone to become better.
Let’s see how our claim goes. We can file it only after everything is inspected, which can take some time…
In summary, we went for the provider that, according to our research, is one of the ones with a high reputation. I shiver when I think about how ones with poor reputation work.
This transportation business is a cutthroat business. And it is the customer’s throat that gets cut.
Maybe, it is time for an Uber of moving?
Some lessons
The most important lesson to learn from this is to not get rushed by the sales team or the moving team, especially, if you are planning a long-distance move.
Never ever.
Have the proposals with all clauses, sent to you as a PDF or similar before signing it. This must include all conditions that are only referenced via online T&C documents. Run them through ChatGPT or Gemini, to identify clauses that are problematic for you. Tools like NotebookLM do a good job here, too. Compare and negotiate. If the clauses are similar, the cheaper provider will do. The crews they work with are anyways hired for the day only and not regular employees.
Make sure that the delivery time frame suits you and not them. Or else, you will live in an empty house for weeks and are very likely incurring additional cost to buy household items that you already have. Get penalties for not adhering into these times into the contract. Check the liability exclusions and strike the ones that really do not work for you. You will find plenty to choose from.
Meticulously check the packing list and especially all comments on it. Contest all remarks that indicate any damage that is not supported by evidence. Again, take your time and do not get rushed.
Check the terms of payment. Try to change them to not having paid in full before they even start to unpack your belongings. There will be damage. There will be unfinished business. There is zero leverage if everything is paid for before you can assess this.
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