I’ve always said there is a thin line between losing money and making a ton of money in the moving business. As a moving company owner, you can’t afford to run a loose operation, there are too many opportunities for money that should turn into profit to slip through your hands. One of the best ways I know to increase profitability is to run a tight local moving operation. It all starts with the way you dispatch your moving crews.

Back in the day, we used to have busy periods where we would run 25 local trucks per day and service up to 60 moves in a day, and that was just out of one of my locations. I know first hand how running a tight local moving operation can positively affect your bottom line.

5 Steps To Run A Tight Local Moving Operation

1. Dispatch at a set time – You want to look at “dispatch” as an event that occurs every morning. The idea is to get as many of your trucks and crews out on the road as possible – first thing in the morning.
2. Truck inventory – It’s not cheap to equip a local moving truck. All the pads, dollies, straps, and packing material that you need are a big expense. You want to make sure that they don’t “go missing” because then you’re forced to buy more equipment. Doing a truck inventory every morning will help alleviate any problem with missing equipment.
3. Send crews out with extras – You never know when you’ll get to a job that doesn’t have everything packed, this is a perfect opportunity to sell boxes or packing services. Always keep extra material on the truck. You also want to make sure your crew has extra bills of lading and storage contracts just in case another job pops up or a customer decides to come into storage.
4. Driver calls the office for start time – This is huge for me. You need to make sure that all your local crews are clocking in and out using one clock – the clock in the office. This will allow you to make sure that you are getting paid for every minute you’re on the move.
5. Driver clocks-out with office – If you let your movers calculate and collect the charges with the customer, I can almost guarantee you’re losing money one way or another. When the office is not calculating the charges and staying on top of where the crew is at all times, you’re inviting the movers to “work off-the-clock”. Meaning they can easily stop the clock early while continuing to work for the customer for tips or directly skimming money off the bill. Either way, you’re losing money.

If any of this seems like a lot of work, that’s because it is. But what other choice do you have? If you’re going to be in business and go to work every day, you want to make sure you’re taking home as much money as possible. And when you run a loose operation, there can be a lot of money slipping through your hands. It’s time to tighten up your local moving operation and start increasing your profits.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for daily tips and motivation to grow your moving company.

Full Transcript [The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you just bought a bunch of equipment for your trucks: Dollies, pads, straps; then all of a sudden, they’re not there anymore? You need to buy more equipment. You have no idea where they went. Or maybe you’ve caught crews that are working off the clock that maybe clocked out at a certain time or continuing to work for the customer. Or maybe you just have jobs that you’re getting to late every single morning because you don’t have your dispatch and your crews set up to be there at a specific time every single day. I wanna share with you my dispatch process because I think it’s one of the things that allowed us to be so successful with local moving over the years. And over the course of the last year, speaking to moving companies, I realize that a lot of companies do this differently. So I want to share with you my process of dispatching local crews in the morning. For those of you who don’t know, dispatch is basically, for me, it’s the process in the morning of giving the crews their job for the day and sending them out. You would have a dispatcher, that’s the person that would be doing it. And this process usually happens every single day, in the morning you wanna get your crews out.

So, the first thing you wanna do is you wanna dispatch at a set time every single day. You want to avoid sending out crews at different times unless you really have to. And I know there are times when that happens, but let me give you an example of how to do this. So let’s say you have five trucks, but you only have three morning starts. Let’s say you have three 8:00 jobs. And the other jobs are scheduled for the afternoon. What you really should do is you should move the other jobs to the morning so that you could send out all five of your trucks. You wanna have all five trucks, if that’s what you have, out in the morning. Because what that does is, that allows you to service more. If you have five trucks on the road few things are happening. Number one, if those trucks are lettered up with your logo, that’s more advertising out on the road for your company. Number two, if a customer calls in at the last minute, you’re gonna be able to have different trucks in different areas to be able to service that job. If somebody calls and says, “Can you move me today?” You’re more likely to be able to do that if you have five trucks out doing, let’s just say, five jobs than if you had three trucks out trying to do five jobs. Maybe one in the morning and then they do another one in the afternoon.

So you wanna have dispatch at a set time every morning. You wanna have your movers show up at that set time. You wanna try to get every truck a morning start. If they also have an afternoon job, great. But always try to get a morning start for each truck and get them out on the road. You want your dispatcher to have one event in the morning. You don’t want them dispatching crews at 6:30 in the morning and then having to do it again at 9:30. You wanna get everybody out in the morning so that your dispatcher can do other things in the office during the day. And if your dispatcher’s you, if you’re starting out like I did and you’re working out of a truck rental yard, you don’t wanna drive to that truck rental yard multiple times. You wanna go there in the morning, get everybody out for the day, and then as they start coming back, you can meet them back there, or they can come back to the office.

Second thing you wanna make sure you’re doing when you’re dispatching your crews in the morning is you wanna make sure you’re doing a truck inventory every single day. We used to have truck inventory sheets, and the first thing a driver would do in a morning is they would come in, they’d get a truck inventory sheet, they’d go out to their truck, and they’d do an inventory of everything that they had on the back of the truck. How many pads, they’d have to count them. How many straps? How many dollies? How many four wheelers? Brooms? Everything that was on that truck. Packing material. Whatever it was, they had to do an inventory. When that inventory came back, we would take it, and we would compare it to the day before. If there was any discrepancy at all, the dispatcher would go out and do a count for himself so that if for some reason there was something missing from the day before, and there was a different driver in that truck the day before, we would charge that driver for that missing equipment. We would need to be able to essentially prove that it was missing. This is gonna help you’re missing equipment problem tremendously. It might seem like a lot of work every single morning to basically have them go out and do an inventory on the truck. They might not wanna do it right away. You need to start doing an inventory every single morning.

Listen, if you don’t have a problem with missing equipment, and you’ve never had a problem with missing equipment, and you buy equipment, and it just stays on the truck, and you never have to buy new pads, and you never have to buy new dollies, then you know what? You don’t need to do it. But I doubt that’s the problem. Because it’s not that someone’s stealing your equipment. That can be the case. But it’s also that they leave it at the house. The customer says, “Can you just leave this padded for us?” They’re like, “Yeah, no problem. Just take care of us, give us a tip.” Instead of, “Let me call the office and find out what the price is for that pad.” Your inventory is expensive. Your pads are expensive, your dollies are expensive, your straps are expensive, and you cannot not have everything that you need on the truck. You don’t wanna penalize your customers because of your lack of inventory control. And what I mean by that is, there’ll be companies that’ll say, “You know what, I’m not buying any more pads. I’m not buying any more equipment.” And they’ll tell their movers, “Go work with what you have.” You can’t do that. It’s your company. You need to make sure that you have all the equipment. Have your inventory control on point, and you won’t have to worry about it. You’ll always have what you need. That’s so important. If you’re not doing that, start doing that right away.

Number three, send crews out with extras. When I say extras, send them out with an extra couple of blank contracts, couple of blank bill of ladings. So that if you do pick up another job, you can just give them the information. They can write it in, they don’t have to come back to the office to get a new bill of lading. They’re out on the road, someone calls in, they want to book a move, you can book it. Give them the information. They’re good. Send them out with storage contracts. What if that next job needs storage? What if the job they’re going to now, they get to the new home, they go to the drop-off, and the customer realizes that something won’t fit, or they don’t like the way that it looks. Wouldn’t it be nice to say, “Well, we offer storage. We can store as little as one piece of furniture, one room of furniture.” If you have your inventory sheets, if you have your storage paperwork, you’ll be able to bring some stuff back to storage. Always have extra storage paperwork on the truck. The next extra you want to make sure you have is packing material. Always have extra packing material on the truck. You never know when you’re going to get to a job, and the customers not ready to go and they need some things packed. That’s extra revenue. A lot of companies won’t put packing material on the truck. Why? Because it always goes missing. Do a truck inventory, you won’t have to worry about that problem.

I’m just telling you, we ran a tight local dispatch operation. If any of this seems like a lot of work, don’t do it. But if you want to run a tight ship, meaning you’re out making money and you’re not losing money, you can’t be in a position where the customer wants packing, and you could actually sell them some boxes, and you don’t have the boxes because you won’t put packing material on the truck because it’s going missing. Do truck inventory every morning. Make sure everything that’s supposed to be there is there. We used to go out and the shrink wrap that was on the truck, we used to get a ruler and measure how much shrink wrap was on that truck. True inventory of everything. Nothing was going missing. Look at your profit and loss statement. Look at how much money you’ve spent on inventory and on boxes. Think about how much more money you can be bringing in from selling some of that stuff and make sure you have it. Make sure you’re prepared on every single job.

Here’s another one that I know a lot of companies aren’t doing. Have your driver call the office with a start time. Call the office to get a start time. Every job on an hourly rated local move should be clocked in and clocked out based on one clock, the clock in the office. If your movers are clocking people in and out, you never know what the real time’s gonna be. You want to know when they get there. They need to call you and say, “I’m here. I need a start time.” You look at the clock and say 8:00 start. They’ll write it on the contract. They’ll start the job, and you know that they’re there. If all your jobs are supposed to start at 8:00, and 8:15 you still have drivers that haven’t called you, you need to get them on the phone and find out where they are because if they’re gonna be late, someone needs to call that customer and let them know you’re gonna be late. Why set that move off on the wrong foot because nobody’s contacting the customer? So, as a dispatcher, and this could be the manager, the owner of the company, whatever role, whatever position you’re in, you’re still… Someone needs to facilitate that dispatcher role. The drivers aren’t there at a time they’re supposed to be there, call, find out where they are, let the customers know they’ll be running late.

Number five. The driver clocks out with the office. We talked about the driver calling in and getting a start time. The driver needs to call in and get a finish time. They need to tell you when they’re gonna be complete. If there’s any extras on the move, it needs to be calculated in the office. You don’t need your movers to calculate this. You don’t want your movers to calculate this. They need to ask you, they need to say, “We’ll be done in 15 minutes,” or “We’re done now,” or “We’ll be done in a half hour. What’s my finish time?” You give them the finish time. They write it in. You give them the charges. Then they go and they bring the paperwork to the customer and collect the charges. This is also a great time for you to get on the phone with the customer, find out how the move went. There’s a big, big reason why you want to clock your crews in and out. Again, 99% of your movers are honest, good, hard-working people. But, there are some, that if you leave the key in the door to the candy shop, they’re gonna go in and they’re gonna take the candy. Period.

You need to run a tight ship or there’s gonna be money dripping out every which way. Movers working off the clock is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Meaning, they go there, they start at 8:00. They call you. They say we’re done at 1:00, but they really stay there until 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, working for the customer, either for tips where they’re taking that difference in money. I’ve seen movers come back where they write one price on the white part of the bill of lading and another price on the yellow part of the bill of lading that the customer gets and totally skim money off a job. Not only should you have GPS on your trucks, you need to be on the phone with them. The minute they say they’re done, they need to be done and either on their way back to the office or on their way to the next job. So the finish time means we’re done and we’re ready to roll. So if the finish time’s at 3:00, by 3:05 that truck should be moving.

When you do a finish time, that means the truck should be pads folded, ready to go the way that it showed up. When you show up to the customer’s house, your truck’s neat, it’s clean, the pads are folded. When you leave, the truck should be neat, clean, and pads folded, and that should be done on the time that the customer’s paying for. It should not be done after the fact. So, how do you do that? You don’t actually charge the customer for that time, you just pick up after yourself as you’re going along. Meaning, as you take a pad off a piece of furniture, it should get folded right away and stacked in the truck. Maybe you take a few three, four, five pads off, then bring it into the house, then fold those two, three, four, five pads. But don’t unload the truck, have a big mound of pads that you then have to fold, that you’re either gonna fold on the customer’s time, which isn’t cool, or you’re gonna then leave and show up to the next job with all these pads a mess, or go back to the office with the pads a mess.

You need to keep a tight control over your movers. Too many companies are allowing a little too much rein to say, “Hey, here’s your jobs for the day,” because they don’t wanna be bothered. I talk to companies left and right, they’re getting taken advantage of. Movers are stealing. They’re working off the clock. They’re working side deals with the customers. You have to run a tight ship. You’re in business to make money. You have to make as much money as you can coming in. You gotta plug all the holes at the bottom from the money going out and try to keep as much as you can. Local dispatch needs to be run tight. Follow these five steps, I promise you, you’ll see a big difference in the way that your dispatch is operating. You’ll see a big difference in the amount of money that you’re making and also the amount of money that you’re saving. Until I see you next week, go out there every single day, profit in business, thrive in life. I’ll see you soon.

Moving and storage go hand-in-hand. Typically, anyone who is moving into storage will be moving as well. As a moving company, it can be very lucrative to have storage as a revenue stream for your business. In this week’s episode, I share with you how to handle storage in your moving company.

At each of my locations throughout the US, we also had a warehouse where we offered storage. These different locations had between 300 and 650 vaults that we were billing $65 per month, per vault. When you are billing out numbers like that, you can pay a lot of your monthly bills just from your storage revenue.

If you’re going to offer storage at your moving company, you need to set it up correctly, otherwise, you’re exposing yourself to a ton of liability.

How To Handle Storage In Your Moving Company

 

1. Offer one month free storage – I always offered one month of free storage to customers. The way I look at it, I was getting two moves out of it. The move in and the move out of storage. So even if they never paid for storage, you still got two moves. If you have the space, always offer one month free storage. And if you have a lot of space, offer two months free. You’ll get more customers and most will end up staying longer than two months anyway which will help you fill up your warehouse.
2. Will the customer need access? – It’s good to find out if the customer will need to get in and out of storage at the time of booking the move. If you’re handling your storage the traditional way with vaults in your warehouse, it’s more of a long-term type of storage. If the customer will need to get in and out of their storage, you’re better off referring them to a self-storage and just booking the move.
3. Detailed inventory – Every single storage job needs to have a detailed inventory completed at the time of the move. Meaning, you will place a sticker on every piece of furniture and box with a number and then list each piece on an inventory sheet and market the condition it’s in. You can order the stickers and forms at Milburn Printing or you can check out new software like Speedy Inventory that allows you complete the inventory digitally. Whichever way you go, just make sure you inventory every storage shipment.
4. Check-in the entire shipment – Now that you’ve done a detailed inventory of the customer’s shipment, you need to make sure that someone is at the warehouse to check-in that shipment. That means that a warehouseman, a manager or yourself needs to be there to check off every piece of furniture as it comes off the truck. If not, you’re running the risk of your customer’s belongings never making it back to the warehouse. It would be too easy for a dishonest mover to make a “pit stop” and drop off a TV at home.
5. Pad and shrink-wrap as needed – It’s great if you can sell additional packing and shrink-wrap to the customer. But if they don’t want to buy it, you still need to make sure you protect their belongings while they’re in storage.
6. Set up automatic billing – There is no reason to have to track down customers every month to get paid. Set them up on auto-pay using their credit card or ACH from their bank. This is super convenient for you and your customers.

When you set up your storage operation the right way, it can be a great flow of revenue coming into your business every month. But if it’s not set up correctly, you’re setting yourself up for one big headache. So, set it up the right way and reap the rewards.

CORRECTION: In this video, I mentioned that we charged $75 per vault. We actually charged $65 per vault. I was working with a company earlier that day on their sales script for storage and they currently charge $75 per vault. When shooting the video I accidentally said $75 instead of $65 and didn’t realize it until after. My apologies for the confusion.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for daily tips and motivation to grow your moving company.

Full Transcript [The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Do you currently offer storage at your moving company or have you thought about offering storage at your moving company? Storage could be a very lucrative monthly recurring revenue that could really help pay a lot of the bills for your business. We did storage and we did it the, some would say the traditional way, where we had wooden vaults 5 x 7 x 7.5 containers that we would have at the warehouse, and we’d stack them three high. And what we would do is we’d send the truck out, we’d go pick up the storage, we’d bring it back, we load it in the vaults and we’d keep it there until the customer was ready to have it delivered out. Nowadays, there’s a lot of different ways that you can do the storage, you could even bring the vaults out to their home, let them load them up or load them up for them there then bring the vaults back. But I wanna talk to you about how I used to do it and share that process with you, because I know a lotta companies are thinking whether they should get into storage and then I know there’s a lotta companies that are doing storage currently that are looking at their process and thinking, “How can we streamline this, how can we make this a little bit better?” Because you also have a lot of liability.

When you bring someone’s possessions into your building, not even just someone, when you bring hundreds of people’s possessions into your building you’re responsible for all that. So it’s definitely something that you wanna consider and it’s definitely something that you want to do very carefully. In my locations, I would say we had anywhere, small locations, 300 vaults all the way up to locations with 650 vaults, billing customers $75 a month per vault, it can pay a lotta your monthly bills. But if you’re going to do it you need to set it up correctly or you’re exposing yourself to a lot of liability. So I wanna give you five steps, the way we used to do it to help you and hopefully this will help get you started or maybe give you some ideas on how to streamline your storage business.

So, the first thing you wanna do as a moving company, you definitely want to offer one month free storage all the time. I am a big, big believer in this and the reason is, when you’re moving somebody and they’re coming into your facility, you’re getting paid for that move in and you’re getting paid for that move out so that’s two moves. So if they come into your warehouse for a month and they don’t pay you anything for storage but you have the space, what did you lose? Nothing, but you gain two moves.

So, the only time you wanna do this, obviously, is if you’re almost at capacity or just about at capacity and you can’t take on any more storage in your business or you’re gonna need to go rent additional space in order to do it. But if you have additional space, if you move into a warehouse for the first time, if you’re just getting into storage or let’s say you’re expanding your current facility, I’d even up it to two months free storage. What’s the difference? You have the space, you have to pay for the space, you may or may not get that move and you may be able to book that move by offering them that additional storage. And remember, it’s two moves every time, a move in and it’s a move-out.

Always ask the customer, when you’re booking storage, if they’re gonna need access to the storage. We’re talking about doing it the traditional way where you have a warehouse, you’re putting them in wooden vaults 5 x 7 x 7.5, you’re gonna stack them either two or three high, sometimes even four. But if a customer is gonna need to get in and out of that storage… In and out of your facility, it’s probably not a good fit for them and you’re probably better off telling them to go to a self-storage unit which you’ll be more than happy to move them to, both in and both out.

And the reason for this is because you don’t want this disruption, you don’t want customers calling and saying, “Hey, I need to get into my storage.” Even though you’re gonna charge for that, even though there’s a fee associated with that it’s not really, in my opinion, good business. You don’t wanna have to charge them every time they come, it just seems petty and you don’t wanna have your warehouse person pull down vaults, set them up, let them look through them, supervise them, because you can’t let them in your warehouse unsupervised because remember, you’re responsible for everybody’s shipments so you can’t just let somebody go in there. So to me, if they are someone that’s going to need constant in-and-out access, they’re better off at a self-storage facility. Let them know, “We’re more of a long-term facility, we’ll pick your items up, we’ll hold them for you, when you’re ready you let us know and we’ll deliver everything back.”

Every single storage job must have a detailed inventory. Meaning that you need to go out there with… If you’ve seen them the lot… The stickers, different colored stickers with lot numbers on them. Nowadays, there’s some electronic versions as well but old-school, you have the stickers, you label each piece with a sticker, each sticker has a certain lot number and a certain number of the piece, then you write down on the inventory what that piece is, and also the condition that it’s in. It’s very important that you mark the condition that it’s in before it comes into storage and that the customer acknowledges that. This is crucial, do not pick up storage, bring it to your facility without doing a detailed inventory of every single piece and you need to make sure that your driver or your head mover or whoever’s in charge knows how to do that, and they know how to look for the damages and put the code on there for the damages.

Number four. This is so, so, so, so important and I know companies right now that are not doing this that have big storage facilities, good size companies, and, if that’s you, you need to start doing this, or you’re exposing yourself to way too much liability. Check in every single shipment completely. You need to have somebody at the warehouse. Not the crew that brought it in, okay? You need to have a warehouseman, a dispatcher, a manager, yourself, a different mover even. Someone that as they’re bringing in the shipment… Remember they did a detailed inventory? You’re gonna have someone that’s taking the inventory sheet, and as each piece comes off the truck, they’re gonna say what number it is. They’re gonna say number 42. Someone’s gonna go, they’re gonna check off 42. They’re gonna say number 322. They’re gonna check that off. Every piece that comes off the truck needs to get checked off to make sure that everything that left that house made it back to your office.

99% of movers are honest, hard-working people. There’s a very small percentage, but they’re out there, that if that’s not tight, and they know you’re not looking at what’s coming in, and what’s coming out, they will make a pit-stop at their house, and drop off that tv, when they know that that customer is not gonna even move out for another year or two, like, nobody will even know for a year or two. Or, they’ll drop off that box of shoes to their girlfriend. Whatever the case may be, I’ve seen it, and you don’t want that to happen. Every single piece needs to get checked off.

So, as it’s getting checked off, if a sticker is not there, for example, there’s a piece of furniture or a box, and they say there’s no number. What you wanna do is have ’em put it to the side, and at the end, you wanna take a look at all the pieces and boxes that they didn’t have a number on ’em, and then match it up to whatever’s left. But, everything needs to get checked off. This is so important. Do not just have ’em come back, and unload, and be on their way. I know it’s much easier, I know it can be a pain to do this. When I first started my business, when it was just me, I had the warehouse. I was literally in the warehouse on my cell phone, booking moves while I was checking off numbers. And, if I had to have them stop what they were doing because I had to take a reservation, then they had to stop what they were doing. But, I made sure that everything was accounted for. This is huge.

Number five. As things are coming in the storage, you need to make sure you protect them. Remember, you’re moving this furniture twice now. There’s a big risk of moving something once that something will get scratched, or something will get damaged. But, now you’re moving it once into the truck, you’re moving it again into a vault, you’re moving it back out of the vault, and to the customer’s house. So, pad and shrink wrap, as needed. I know that you’re gonna wanna sell this to the customer, and that’s great. If you could sell padding, and packing, and shrink wrap, great. But, if they don’t wanna buy it, when it comes back before you put it in the vault, make sure you do what you need to do to protect it, for your own liability, or you’re gonna have a problem, and you’re gonna have a claim, and you’re gonna have a bad review.

So, I would get, some supply places will call ’em ‘warehouse pads’. It’s like a moving pad, it’s a little bit thinner. You could either change out the pads when you get back to the warehouse, or if you know it’s going on a storage job, you could basically pull your regular moving pads off the truck, load it with the warehouse pads, and send ’em out there. And this way, they could pad everything, and when it comes back, it can go right into the vault.

Then, I wanna give you one little bonus tip, here. Set everybody up on automatic billing. Make this a requirement. We didn’t do this at first. When I first started storage, I literally was manually sending out bills to people, pen and paper. Years later, we finally set ’em up on automatic re-occurring billing, either on their credit card or even on a bank account. And we made this a requirement if they’re coming into storage. You’re still gonna have people that you’re gonna have to call because the payment didn’t go through and you’re gonna have to follow up with that. But, it’s much easier than trying to track down checks and trying to get payments. Set everybody up on automatic re-occurring billing.

So listen, I hope this was helpful. I know there’s a lotta different ways you could do storage. I know you don’t even have to have a facility, you can put things in a self-storage unit. But, when you’re ready, and this I would say, people ask me sometimes, like, “When should I get an office? When should I get a warehouse?” You should get a warehouse when you’re ready to do storage. When you’re ready to collect monthly revenue that’s gonna help pay for the rent, pay for some of your insurance, maybe even your trucks. It could be a very lucrative business if it’s done right.

But, the reason I’m stressing the liability so much, is because if it’s not, and you have a claim every single time something comes out of storage, or every single time something comes out of storage there’s something missing, it’s gonna be a nightmare. And you’re gonna wish you’d never started doing it. So, if you’re in that place now, you know what I’m talking about, because I experienced it, and I had to backtrack from that and make sure that we set up processes that did not allow that to happen.

So again, if you’re not offering storage, think about offering storage. It’s a big money generator. And until I see you next time, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you next time.

I recently received a question from a moving company owner on Facebook that I felt was really important for me to share with you. His question was: ”I have a quick question. Since I’m working on gaining more positive reviews, what is the best way to solve these issues? Number one, the damages, like scratches that the movers did and, number two, how to handle cheap customers that were expecting to get the move done in three hours, but it took six hours, and then they’re complaining about how long it took and asking for a huge discount,” he said.

And then he went on to say, “In my opinion, I think that we should reimburse 10 to 30% of the deal and take the money out of the mover’s salary. Otherwise, I’m gonna be losing money every time I give them a discount.”

So when you read his question you can see that his objective is to get more positive reviews. He’s having a few issues that keep coming  up that are preventing that from happening. It’s great that he recognizes the importance of gaining positive reviews while also realizing that he has some issues that are getting in the way.

When dealing with these problems it’s important to address the cause of the problem and not just put a band-aid on the effect of the problem. 

• Issue #1 – He’s getting too many damage claims – The cause of this problem is that his movers aren’t properly trained to not damage items during the move. Yes, damage will happen. But if you are constantly getting damage claims that is the effect of the movers not being trained properly, which is the cause.

• Issue # 2 – Miscalculation of the estimates – His concern here is that he has “cheap” customers that are complaining and wanting a huge discount when they were expecting a three hour move and it turns out to be a six hour move. Having to deal with this problem is the effect of not properly setting the customer’s expectations. This could be from not estimating the move properly, poor communication or both.

With any problem you are having in your business remember, focus on what caused the problem and how you can prevent that problem from happening again in the future. Otherwise, you’ll constantly be dealing with the effect of the same problem over and over again.

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Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. I recently received a Facebook message from a moving company owner asking me a couple of questions, and I think it’s really important that everybody hears the answer to this question. I wanna go ahead and I wanna share with you the question that he asked me, and I’ll tell you what I responded to him. His question was, I’ll read it to you, he said, “I have a quick question. Since I’m working on gaining more positive reviews, what is the best way to solve these issues? Number one, the damages-like scratches that the movers did and, number two, how to handle cheap customers that were expecting to get the move done in three hours, but it took six hours, and then they’re complaining about how long it took and asking for a huge discount,” he said. And then he went on to say, “In my opinion, I think that we should reimburse 10 to 30% of the deal and take the money out of the mover’s salary. Otherwise, I’m gonna be losing money every time I give them a discount.”

The objective here, what he’s really trying to do is he’s trying to gain more positive reviews. But he’s got a couple of issues. The first issue is damage. The second issue is really a miscalculation of the move estimate. So let’s break them down one by one. As far as the damage is concerned, you need to address the damage, you need to resolve the issue with the customer to make them happy. You can’t have a process of saying, “You know what? I’m just gonna give them 10 to 30% of whatever it is, and it’s a done deal. And that’s it.” Go back, watch my previous video on how to deal with damage claims, and follow that step-by-step process. I’ll put a link down below so that you have it, and you could go and follow that. But the idea is that you need to make the customer happy, number one. Number two is that you wanna make sure that when you’re focused on these problems, you’re focused on the cause of the problem and you’re not just trying to put a Band-Aid on the effect of the problem. And that’s what he was trying to do here, and that’s basically what I told him. I said, “You can’t put a Band-Aid on the effect of the problem. You have to resolve the cause of the problem.”

So with the damage, the cause of the problem is your movers aren’t trained to not damage furniture. Yes, claims will happen, damage will happen here and there, but it shouldn’t be to a point where it’s put you out of business. And it shouldn’t be to a point where you have to make the decision on, “Should I pay customers or should I not pay them?” Because his goal here is to get a better online reputation, to get better reviews, and that should be your goal, too. If you wanna stay in business long term, you should want to have a good reputation, you should want your customers out there saying good things about you. And if you damage their furniture and say, “Listen, we’re just gonna give you 10% or 30% of what it is,” and then you turn around and take the money out of your mover’s checks, you’re gonna have a mutiny on your hands with your movers, too. So, basically I tell them, “You need to take a step back and you need to look at this, the big picture here.”

There’s a couple of problems. Number one, you need to do a better job at training your movers to not cause damage. Again, go watch the video on dealing with damages and resolving complaints. And his second concern was, “How do I handle cheap customers that were expecting to get the move done in three hours, but it took six, and then they’re complaining and want a huge discount?” They’re expecting three hours. Why are they expecting three hours? Something that was said on the phone with your company or doing an on-site estimate made that expectation. So even if you’re just quoting somebody an hourly rate, how did they get the expectation of three hours when it really turned into six? You need to look at your estimating process and not worry about the customer wanting a huge discount. It’s actually not a discount. The customer wants to pay what they were expecting. So take a step back, and instead of trying to look at how to resolve those issues, how to only give the customer back a certain percentage of the money, focus on how do you do a better job estimating the move so that the expectations are set correctly.

And, yes, I understand 100% there’s gonna be times where you do your best giving an estimate, you go out to the job, and it ends up being longer than it was estimated. How do you deal with that on a customer-by-customer basis is you resolve it with the customer. The customer is adamant with, “Hey, listen, I was expecting three hours… ” It depends on what the expectation was. Did you send them an estimate that says it’s gonna be three hours? Did that estimate clearly state that this is just a ballpark estimate or did it say this is how long it’s gonna take based on the information that you sent? It’s all about setting the customer’s expectations correctly at the time of booking the move so that you don’t run into this problem. And if you only run into this problem here and there, and in order to keep the customer happy, you just charge them the three hours instead of the six hours, it’s not gonna kill you, unless it’s happening every time, unless you have a faulty estimating process to where, almost every move, the customer has an expectation of a low estimate, and it ends up being double or even more.

So you wanna focus on the cause, not try to put a Band-Aid on the effect of it. So, in this case, he’s looking to just give the customer back 10 to 30% of the deal, take the money out of the mover’s salary, and he says, “If I do this, I’m gonna be losing money every time I give the customer a discount.” Don’t focus on that. Focus on fixing the cause of the problem. So basically I went on and I just said to him, I said, “The way I like to handle things is to fix the cause of the problem and not put a Band-Aid on it.” So if you look at these two situations, I would focus on the cause. The best way to deal with damages is to train your movers to get less damage. If you wanna keep a good reputation, which you do, then you wanna repair the damage and give the customer the money back. Yes, that will cost you money, but a bad reputation will cost you more money. The cause is the movers. They need to be trained and held accountable for their damages.

On your second question, if the customer was expecting three hours and it ended up being six hours, then I would focus on doing a better job giving estimates and setting the customer’s expectations. Sometimes something was said in the conversation with your company that made them expect three hours, it will be a problem if it’s six hours. Period. Listen, these things are gonna continue to happen. So if you find yourself constantly struggling, and he used the term here with “cheap customers.” It doesn’t make a customer cheap because they were expecting to pay something and then it doubled. If you struggle with these issues, I just challenge you to change your perspective on the way that you look at it. And instead of trying to keep putting Band-Aids on the issues, Band-Aids on the issues, Band-Aids on the issues, focus on the cause.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, as always, leave them in the comments below. Go out there every single day. Profit in your business. Thrive in your life. I’ll see you next week.

 

Damage claims are inevitable when you own a moving company. Mistakes happen. You want to set up a process so that you can deal with the claims right away and make sure you correct the issue with your customer and make them happy.

5 steps for moving companies to resolve damage claims:

1. Assess the damage – How Bad is it? Is it something that can be repaired within your company, or do you need to call a 3rd party repair company? Or should you replace it all together and settle with the customer? Assess what it’s going to take to make the customer happy.
2. Repair, pay or start claims process – If you can repair it on the spot, repair it. If not, and the customer is willing to take a reasonable amount of money to solve it, go ahead and pay them. Otherwise, start the claims process. Go through a step by step process, whether it’s within your own office or through a claims process service company.
3. Resolve issue & get a signed agreement – Just like complaints, claims are no different. You want to make sure you resolve the issue.  If you are cutting a check to the customer, once the issue has been resolved, make sure you always get a signed agreement between you and the customer stating that a check was issued for claims and that they cannot come after your company later on and sue you for the damage that you’re paying them for.
4. Train your movers on the specifics – Once you establish what types of damages are happening you should retrain your movers on how to protect those specific items. For example, if you’re getting a lot of damage with glass table tops, train your movers on how to protect and move glass table tops.
5. Reward your movers for no claims – Don’t just look at it as part of your mover’s job not to cause damage, reward them for it. This will incentivize them to take the extra precaution needed to safely move your customer’s belongings. It’s a win-win-win, for your company, your customers, and your movers.

I recommend using a claims process service company, who will facilitate all the paperwork for you and take all the administrative tasks off your hands. I used Claims Service International (CSI) to help with facilitating the claims process for our customers.

Having a process in place to deal with damage claims as they come into the office will help you resolve the issues and keep your customers happy. Oh yeah… and increase profits.

Watch the video above for the full episode.

Like this episode? Please share it! My blog and videos are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!

How can I help? What challenges are you facing in your business? What areas could you use some tips in?

Leave me a comment below and I will be more than happy to get back to you or post a video on the topic.

Follow Louis on Instagram for daily tips and motivation to grow your moving company.

 

Full Transcript
[The following is the full transcript of this episode.]

Hey, my friend. It’s Louis Massaro, CEO of Moving Mastery and founder of Moving Sales Academy. What do you do when you get a damage claim? It’s inevitable. It’s gonna happen. No matter how hard you try, no matter how well you train your movers, no matter what processes and procedures you put in place, there’s gonna be damage on a move. It happens. Whether it’s an antique piece of furniture that gets a scratch on it, whether it’s a table, the leg totally breaks off, whether it’s glass that get shattered and broken, there’s damages that happen on a move which is part of taking furniture, putting it in a truck, and moving it. What happens? What do you do when you get a damage claim? How do you address it so that you can move on, keep your customer happy, and then work to make sure that you don’t get as many claims in the future?

The first thing you need to do when a claim happens, so when the customer calls and says they had some damage, or when your mover says, “Hey, there was a little damage on this job,” is you need to assess the damage. How bad is it? Is it something that can be repaired with a little furniture repair marker that maybe your head mover knows how to do? Is it something that you need to call a repair guy and let him come out and repair the furniture? Or is it something that’s completely destroyed? You need to assess the damage and you need to assess what it’s going to take to make the customer happy. It’s not just about repairing the furniture. It’s about making the customer happy. That’s the first thing you wanna do. Then, repair, pay, or start the claims process. If you can repair it on the spot, repair it. If you can send somebody out there to repair it, repair it. If not, and the customer’s willing to take a reasonable amount of money to resolve it, go ahead and pay them and make them happy and be done with it. Otherwise, you need to start the claim process and you really need to go through a step by step claims process.

I recommend using a claims processing service company. I’ll go ahead and put some links down below. There’s companies out there that specialize in handling claims for moving companies and what they do is they just take the administrative task off your hand. They take the interaction with the customer and they handle it. They go through the step by step, they get the pictures from the customer, they get the original receipt from the customer. They evaluate what it’s worth, what you should pay out, and they’ll facilitate all the paperwork for you. Then you wanna make sure that with all complaints, damage is no different, that you resolve the issue. But with the damage, they wanna resolve the issue and always get a signed agreement if you’re cutting a check. If you’re cutting a customer check after going through the claims process, make sure that they sign an agreement stating that they can’t come back after you later and sue you for the damage that you’re paying them for. A claim servicing company will help with this, but you wanna make sure you get a signature if you’re cutting a check. Resolve that issue.

The next is train your movers on the specifics. I’ll give you an example to this. I had an issue with claims and I noticed it in one of my offices by reviewing my P&L, the profit and loss statement. I’m reviewing the P&L and I see that there’s a high from one quarter that would just seem to be a high dollar amount paid out in claims. I drilled down. I looked into our moving CRM. I ran the claims report. I saw that we had a high volume of claims, so we started to look at what the claims actually were. And it turns out the majority of the claims were all for either glass table tops or marble table tops and that was the bulk of all the damages. What do we do? We don’t retrain the movers on everything. We noticed that certain movers didn’t know how to do that properly. In other words, regardless if we train them on it or not, they weren’t protecting the glass tops, they weren’t protecting the marble tops, they weren’t moving them properly, so we retrained them on that specifically and resolved the issue.

You wanna make sure you take care of the customer, but you also wanna come back on the back end and make sure that you prevent these problems from happening again. Drill down on the specifics. Look at what exactly the claims are. Unless your movers are just completely negligent and they’re just breaking everything, in which case you need new movers or you need to completely retrain them, you could usually isolate what’s happening. Is it scratches? Are they breaking legs off of tables cause they’re not moving them properly? What is the specific? Train them on the specifics.

And number five, reward your movers for no claims. I know companies will deduct their movers for claims and charge them for any claims that they cause, but what you wanna do is you wanna have a good process around the way that you handle your claims. You wanna make sure that you can address them as a company, retrain them in certain specific areas that you know are problems, and then reward them for doing a good job and not just look at it and say, “You know what? Their job is to move furniture and they get paid for that. They shouldn’t be damaging stuff.” If you want them to not damage furniture, reward them for it. That’s a huge bonus. It’s a win-win for you, the customer, for them, all the way around. It just makes your company better. That is your mover doing an excellent job. If they go out and they make your customer happy and they don’t damage furniture, reward them for it.

Listen, the key is to address the problem right away. The key is you wanna make sure that you’re making the customer happy and you just wanna have a system for when… When a claim happens, just deal with it and move on, but don’t leave anything uncovered. You deal with the customer, then you find out why it’s happening, what the specifics are of what’s being damaged. Is it negligence by a crew that just has no idea what they’re doing? Or is it a specific item, like in my case, the table tops? We were having problems with those, so we trained them on that and that problem went away and that all results into additional money for your company. Because if you’re spending money on claims, that’s less profit. Period. I told you that I saw one quarter of our profit and loss statements just high claims being paid out. Well, what do you think happens when that goes away and we eliminate that? There’s plenty of money left over to reward the movers and there’s plenty of extra profit left over too. Not to mention the happy customers, the positive reviews, all of that just accumulates to help build your business. Follow these steps to resolve the claims. If you have any questions, leave me a comment below. Until next week, go out there every single day, profit in your business, thrive in your life. I’ll see you later.