How Do I Hire a Reputable Moving Company?

6 Tips for Ensuring a Successful Moving Day

The idea of moving can be very exciting for the entire family, one jam-packed with all sorts of new situations and scenarios. You or your spouse could be starting a new job, your kids may be starting life at a new school and want to find new friends, and everyone will have to adjust to the confines of a new home.

But the practical details of moving can be extremely stressful, especially if you have never moved before and don’t know the ins and outs of what it takes to pull off a successful move. And because you’re a grownup who doesn’t need to wrangle your friends to help you lift boxes all weekend, that means you need to hire a reputable moving company you can trust.

Sure, it’s important that you have a plan your family can follow for packing up your home, one that spaces out the tasks over several weeks in advance of Moving Day. We just feel it’s more important that you hire a reliable moving company to transport all your boxes and belongings to your new home on actual Moving Day. With our handful of helpful hints, we’ll guide you through the process of examining all your options so that you hire the moving company that is right for you, your family, AND your stuff.

1) Talk to Your Friends

This might be the simplest step, but it’s one we tend to forget in the age where Google, Yelp, and other online review sites provide recommendations. But there’s a very good chance that you have plenty of friends who have moved within the past few years, and they will have plenty of opinions about their moving experiences.

Your friends will happily tell you about the great companies that moved them successfully, and they will definitely tell you about the terrible companies that ruined their belongings. Use this information as a great jumping-off point for your research.

2) Visit Review Sites

Online review sites have plenty of merits, but you must learn how to interpret the reviews with a grain of salt (or an entire carton). Much like the opinions of your friends, most online review sites are populated with people who either had excellent or awful experiences with moving companies, with very few middle-of-the-road reviews. So, before you buy into the hype and/or hyperbole, dig into the content of the reviews on the companies that interest you, especially if they don’t match what you’ve heard about from your friends, family, and co-workers.

3) Get a Quote You Can Trust

After you complete your in-person and online research, you should have a shortlist of companies that you feel would be the right moving company for you. Contact each of these companies and ask them to provide you a quote on how much your move might cost. Understanding the details of that quote now could save you heartache, wasted money, and broken possessions later.

• Do not accept a flat quote over the phone, no matter how much information you think you provide the company during your initial call. You want the company to come to your home to actually look at your stuff.
• The moving company should conduct a very thorough walkthrough of your home to truly examine everything you need to move.
• Listen to how the moving company talks during that walkthrough. You want them to ask you very specific questions about your possessions to ensure they are moved safely and because those questions mean the company is detail-oriented.

4) Examine the History of the Company

This entails a bit of research on your part, but it will be worth it to know you aren’t dealing with a potentially shady or fly-by-night operation.
Moves can be costly, so it’s absolutely crucial that you are aware of any and all charges you might be asked to pay when the move has been completed. This means you need to ask your potential moving company lots of questions about how, when, where, and why you might be charged – well before you sign any sort of contract. Such fees include the following:

• Packing fees
• Mileage and transportation
• Inconveniences – tall apartment building, narrow city streets, oddly shaped possessions, etc.

In short, any moving company worth doing business with should feel comfortable discussing any questions about fees with you, as it means it has nothing to hide from you and other potential customers.

6) Check the Equipment

This might seem a bit invasive on your part, but it behooves you to examine the type of moving trucks the company owns. No matter how reliable the company might be as individuals, if the trucks the company uses to transport your possessions aren’t in good condition, your stuff might not arrive at your new home in good condition either.

Moving Day will already be stressful enough without you and your family worrying about whether or not your possessions will arrive safely and securely at your new home. Determining the reputable moving company that you want to hire for your home, family, and possessions will be a delicate balance of evaluating appearances, considering financials, and trusting your instincts.

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