Your moving experience can be significantly impacted by selecting the best moving company. Evaluating movers’ qualifications, including training, licensing, and insurance, is essential.
When evaluating your options, it would help if you also considered their work culture and professionalism. Choosing movers who prioritize customer satisfaction can make your move as stress-free as possible.
Do Your Research
Choosing reliable movers can make your relocation stress-free and easy. While you may be tempted to ask friends or family members to help, this can cause problems if they get sick, work late, or otherwise bail on your move. Professionals, on the other hand, are experienced and can handle the entire process for you.
You should research to find a company that has good customer reviews, is licensed and insured, and provides services at a fair price. Also, look for professional affiliations and check whether the company performs background checks on employees. If they don’t offer a transparent estimate or seem unprofessional during an assessment, keep looking for another company. It will save you time and money in the long run.
Ask for Recommendations
Choosing the right moving company is one of the most important decisions when preparing for your relocation. There are many factors to consider and red flags to look out for, so you must take the time to shop around and choose a trustworthy and reliable company.
Asking friends and family for recommendations will make it easy to find local movers like Your Neighbors that meet your demands. They may have personal experience with the businesses they suggest and can offer in-depth evaluations of their professionalism and effectiveness. For example, they can tell you whether the mover has experience handling local moves and knows how to handle challenges like parking restrictions, steep stairs, and narrow doorways.
Get Multiple Quotes
Watch for red flags as you get recommendations and compare cost estimates. If an estimate seems significantly lower than others or a mover demands full payment upfront, these could be signs of a scam.
Getting an accurate moving quote requires an in-home (or virtual) inspection of your home and belongings. It allows movers to make an informed assessment and ensure you are getting a fair price.
Be sure to also ask about licensing and insurance requirements. Reputable movers should provide a USDOT number and liability insurance to cover the value of your belongings. They should not require a deposit and should never demand full payment upfront. You can also trim costs by decluttering ahead of time and donating or throwing away items you no longer need or want to keep.
Beware of Scams
When comparing quotes, pay close attention to the company’s metric to calculate prices. For example, if they only provide over-the-phone estimates or refuse an in-home estimate, that’s typically a red flag. In-home estimates are more accurate and ensure that the mover creates an itemized inventory that will give you a clear idea of the final price.
Unscrupulous movers often try to sneak in extra fees, such as fuel surcharges or jacked-up weights. These types of additional charges are not only dishonest but illegal, and they can add up quickly.
Another common scam involves movers holding your belongings hostage. It is usually done using vague contracts that allow them to charge additional fees once your items are in their possession.
Trust Your Instincts
Sometimes, you have to trust your gut feeling. That inner voice, those feelings or nudges(whatever you call them) all have a reason.
It may seem counterintuitive to trust your intuition, especially if the nudge or feeling comes with little to no physical evidence. However, your body has a lot of data about the world around you, including the people in it.
Learning to recognize these signs might take time, but once you do, leveraging your gut feelings can be essential to making decisions. Just remember that your intuition isn’t a substitute for thorough research. Instead, it should be used with all your other resources and senses. This way, your decision-making process is more holistic and complete.
