There were certain things in my moving companies that were non-negotiable, must get done tasks. Meaning that regardless of the circumstances they must happen every single time. One of those things was confirming every single move.

Confirming Every Move

1. Create a confirmation checklist – When confirming a move you’re not just calling to find out if the customer is still moving. You are calling to verify all the details of the move and you do that by having a confirmation checklist to make sure that everything is verified on every call.
2. Call 1 to 2 days before the move  – This is the best time to call because it will give you a better idea of how prepared the customer is for the move. At this point they will know whether they’re going to be able to finish their packing or whether they might need some of their belongings stored.
3. You must speak to the customer  – Remember, you need to verify information by speaking with the customer. Leaving them a message does not qualify as confirming the move. You must receive a call back and go through your checklist in order to consider the move confirmed.
4. Confirm all the details of the move – Verify their addresses (to and from), their estimate, the gate code, insurance requirements for buildings, packing needed, specialty items, the time you’ll arrive, how you will charge them, what’s included in the estimate, the forms of payment you accept and when they will need to pay and see if they have any questions for you.
5. Upsell packing & storage – When a customer is initially setting up their move they may believe that they will pack everything themselves and not need storage, things change. A day or two before the move they may need more boxes, or want your company to finish the packing. They may have thought they wanted to bring everything to the new home but decided they wanted to store a few items. This is a great time to upsell your packing services and storage.

The success of each move begins with communication. Communication from the customer to the salesperson, then to dispatch, then to your movers. A scripted confirmation call will help make sure everyone is on the same page before moving day. If you’re not doing this now on a consistent basis (every move), I suggest you start right away.

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

Have you ever sent a crew out to a move, got there and the customer’s like, “We’re not moving”? Or maybe you got there and what you had on the reservation was totally different than what they actually did have? This is why it’s so, so, so important that you do a confirmation call before every single move. This is like a non-negotiable thing. It was always a non-negotiable thing in all of my companies. We must do a confirmation call on every local move; long distance, too. But we’re gonna talk about local moving today. We’re gonna talk about why you must and how to confirm every single move and the benefits of it.

So, first thing you wanna do… I’m gonna give you five things to help you out here. First thing you wanna do is you wanna create a confirmation checklist. This is like a combination of a script and a checklist. So when I say a confirmation call, I do not mean, “Ms. Jones? Hi. It’s the moving company. Are you moving? We’re gonna be there tomorrow at 8:00. Great. We’ll see you then.” No. “Ms. Jones, hi. We’re calling from the moving company. I was just calling to confirm your move for tomorrow. Are we still moving you? Oh, great. Let me just verify a few details. I see that you’re moving from this address. I see that you’re moving to that address. You have a three bedroom home. This, that. I have your inventory here. I see that we have a piano. We’re gonna go ahead and take care of that. Do you have any items that are coming into storage? Is there anything that you need packed?” You go over all the details of the move on the scripted confirmation call. You need everything that you wanna make sure of before you go out there. You need to make sure it’s in your checklist.

A confirmation call is your last and final chance to clean up any mess that the salesperson may have made. Let me say that again. Salespeople may make a mess of the job. They may not book it absolutely correct. The customer may have left some things off the inventory. The salesperson may have been a little lazy in their estimate. There may have just been a little bit of a miscommunication between the customer and the salesperson. Whatever the case is, when you do a scripted confirmation call with a checklist and you go over all the details before you send the crew, it’s your last and final chance to make it right. Don’t just call again and say, “Hey, we’re gonna be there tomorrow.” Go through everything. Make sure you’re prepared for that move. This is a non-negotiable. This needs to happen on every single job. You wanna call one to two days before the move. It’s really up to you how far in advance you need it for planning purposes. You don’t wanna do it further than this. You don’t wanna do it like three, four, five days in advance. Because for the customer’s sake, you wanna basically be able to say, “Hey, we’re coming there tomorrow,” or, “We’re coming there the day after tomorrow.”

This way, it’s fresh in their head. Maybe they forget, who knows? You wanna make sure that you have your schedule tightened up, and you don’t all of a sudden show up to a job that’s like, “Oh, we’re not moving.” “Oh, we called somebody and we rescheduled,” or, “We forgot to call you and reschedule.” Call them one to two days before the move and you could email, you could call, you could text. I suggest you do all of them, but you must speak to the customer. Leaving them a message and saying, “Hey, we’re just confirming. We’ll be there tomorrow. We’re just letting you know.” The confirmation is not for them. The confirmation is for you to make sure that you’re still on, that you should schedule a crew, that you should schedule a truck, how much equipment you need. Do you need any additional packing material? Are they gonna need storage? The confirmation call is… You need to speak to the customer. You need to let them know in your message, in your email or in your text that, “We need to speak with you in order to send our crews out there.” You need to get that phone call back.

And if they don’t call you back, you need to keep calling them ’til you get them on the phone. It’s so important that you do a confirmation call. Make sure you speak to the customer, confirm all the details. We talked about this a little bit. Confirm all the details in the move. Everything. From the address to the gate code. Does the building need insurance? Everything that you’re gonna possibly need that could cause a problem on the day of the move, this is the time to handle it. Confirm all the details. And number five, this is a perfect opportunity to upsell packing and storage. They may have planned… When your salesperson booked the job, they may say, “No, we’re not… Everything’s gonna go into the house.” “No. We’re gonna do our own packing. No problem. We have plenty of time.” You call them a day or two in advance. They might be at that point where they’re like, “I don’t wanna do any more packing.” Or they ran out of boxes and they gonna need to run out. And they’re just like, “You know what? We do have some things that you actually can come and pack for us. Are you guys able to do that on the day of the move?” “Sure. Absolutely. Not a problem.” You give them a quote on packing. You let them know what it’s gonna be. You make sure the material is on the truck and you just sold some packing on that job.

Maybe this customer is starting to realize that they’re gonna need some storage. Maybe they need to store one room of furniture that’s not gonna go into the new house. They didn’t think that when they first set up the appointment, but now they do need storage. You need to remind them that you offer storage. And then you could do it one room of furniture, one piece of furniture, whatever they need. Or maybe the place they’re moving into isn’t ready yet. You didn’t know that. And maybe they didn’t know that, until you just called them, but now you know, you could bring it into storage. They might be on the phone looking for public storage not knowing that you offer storage.

Confirming moves is one of the… I mean, if you’re not doing this consistently now, and when I say consistently, I speak to a lot of moving company owners. I don’t mean like, “Oh, yeah, they make some confirmation calls.” And as the owner, you don’t really know who’s making a call, what they’re saying exactly. That’s a problem. Now, if you’re not having problems on any of your moves, your customer service is perfect, you never run into any issues where you show up and the customer is like, “I’m not moving,” or you show up and the customer, the move is totally different than what was explained, then maybe you don’t need to do it.

But I can tell you that every single move we ever did was confirmed, and this will save you a world of headaches. So, if you think you’re confirming now, if you’re like, “Oh, I told my dispatcher to make some calls,” or, “I told this person in the office to call and just confirm,” run through this process, do a real confirmation. This is gonna help your operations, this is gonna help your profit, this is gonna help your customer service. Overall, this is such an impactful thing you could do for your operation. Start doing it right away. Confirmation calls. Scripted checklist on every single call. Go head out, start doing this, I’ll see you next week. Profit in business. Thrive in life. Thanks for tuning in.