By business type
Answering removals enquiries without quoting a price you cannot honour
Removals pricing has exactly two variables and customers know neither of them: how much there is, and how hard it is to get to. Everything else is detail. So the assistant's job is not to produce a number, it is to explain why the survey exists, ask the two questions that make the survey productive, and be completely straight about what the insurance actually covers.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- how much to move a three bedroom house
- do you do packing as well
- are my things insured while in the van
- can you store our stuff for a month
- do you dismantle beds and wardrobes
- there is no parking outside the flat
- can you move a piano
- how far in advance should i book
- what happens if completion is delayed
- do you take plants and paint tins
- is the survey free
- do you charge more at the end of the month
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| How you actually price a move | The variables in your own words: volume in cubic feet or metres, access at both ends, distance, stairs and lift availability, parking and permits, day of the week and time of month. Customers assume it is priced by bedrooms, and explaining the real method is worth more than a from price. |
|---|---|
| The survey process | Whether it is done in person or by video, how long it takes, whether it is free, what the surveyor is measuring, and how fast the quote follows. Video surveys removed the main friction from this trade and plenty of customers still do not know they are an option. |
| Your liability limits and insurance options | The default cover included, the per item limit inside it, the extended option and what it costs, and what is excluded. Customers hear the word insured and assume full replacement value, which is almost never what a standard removals liability limit means. |
| Packing services and materials | Full pack, part pack, fragile only, what materials cost, whether they are collected afterwards, and whether self packed boxes are covered on the same terms. That last point catches people out constantly. |
| Storage terms | Container or room based, the minimum period, the weekly or monthly rate, how access works and what notice you need to get goods out. Delayed completions push people into storage at no notice, so the terms need to be legible in a hurry. |
| What you will not move, and your terms on dates | The refusal list (fuel, aerosols, paint, gas bottles, plants across some borders, valuables and documents you decline to carry) alongside your cancellation and date change charges. Both are unwelcome news, which is a reason to publish them early rather than late. |
What has to reach a person
Any actual price for a move
A three bedroom house can be twice the volume of another three bedroom house and half as accessible. Any number the assistant gives is a guess, and it becomes the number the customer expected when the real quote arrives higher.
The productive handling is to explain the two variables, name the survey, and collect the postcodes at both ends, the property type, the floor and the parking situation. That turns a chat into a survey booking with the hard questions already answered.
Whether a specific date is available
Removals demand piles up at month end and around completion dates, and availability is a diary the assistant cannot see. Promising a Friday in a busy month and then withdrawing it is worse than asking for a phone number in the first place.
Whether a particular loss or damage would be paid
A claim is assessed against the cover the customer chose, the packing arrangement and the terms they signed. The assistant can state the limits and how a claim is made. It must not indicate that anything would or would not be paid, because that reads as a decision from the company.
A move with something genuinely unusual in it
A piano, a safe, a large aquarium, art, a machine that has to be craned through a window. These are jobs that need a person to look at them, and they are also the jobs where a wrong assumption on the day costs a crew and a vehicle.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot price a move or confirm a date, because the price depends on volume and access and both are set at the survey. I can explain how we price, what the survey involves, what our cover includes and what we cannot carry. Leave your name, email and both postcodes and the team will come back to you.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Goods in transit cover is not full replacement cover
Removals liability is normally limited, commonly per item and sometimes by weight, and the standard terms in this trade exclude quite a lot: items packed by the customer, jewellery and cash, anything with an undeclared high value. Extended cover is usually a separate paid option.
This is the single biggest misunderstanding in removals and the source of the angriest complaints. An assistant that states the limit plainly whenever insurance comes up does more good than any other single thing on this page.
Completion dates move, and the contract has to cope
Domestic moves are tied to a chain that can slip on the morning itself. Your terms on postponement, on waiting time and on the crew standing down are the terms most likely to be tested, and the customer's memory of them is set by whatever they were told first.
Index the actual clause. An assistant quoting the clause before the booking is protecting both sides.
Some things cannot be carried at all
Fuel, gas bottles, aerosols, some chemicals and open paint are refused on safety grounds by essentially every removals firm, and there are further restrictions on plants, food and firearms when crossing a border. A customer who finds out on the morning has a real problem and no time.
Publishing the list is not defensive, it is useful, and it is exactly the kind of question an assistant answers better than a phone call because people ask it item by item.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- A price or a price range for a specific move before a survey.
- Whether a particular date or crew is available.
- Whether a specific damage or loss claim would be paid.
- That goods are fully insured, without stating the limits and exclusions.
- Whether an item can be carried when it is on the restricted list.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a removals company rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- Pricing a move on volume and access rather than on bedroomsTwo three bedroom houses can differ by half a van and a flight of stairs. Volume and access are the price, and neither is in a message.
- The word insured, and the limit nobody expects behind itCustomers hear insured and think replacement value. Standard cover is a liability limit, usually per item, with exclusions that matter.
- Missing and damaged items, handled in the order they resolveMost missing items are in the wrong room. The rest are a claim with a reporting deadline, and the deadline is the useful thing to say.
- When the date moves, and the clause that was written for exactly thatChains move on the morning itself. Your terms on date changes, waiting time and standing a crew down answer nearly all of it.
- No triage after a move has gone badlyOnce somebody says the move went wrong, every clarifying question reads as resistance. Agree first, take the details, stop there.
- Two bookings, and only one of them can be made todayA survey slot can be arranged for next week. The move date waits on a completion, so a firm pencils it and nobody commits until exchange.
- The shape of the bill, before anybody talks about the figureA day rate with a crew of three, or a fixed price for the job. Then materials, dismantling, a permit and waiting time sit outside both.
- What the deposit buys, and why the charge climbsA deposit takes a van and a crew off the calendar for your day. What it costs to release them climbs as the move gets closer.
- Payment before the tailgate opens, and the lines that arrive laterThe balance is normally cleared before the van is unloaded. Anything counted on the day, waiting time or extra materials, invoices later.
- Three things called a refund, and only one of them is oneA deposit under the scale, a storage period paid ahead, and damage are three different conversations arriving in the same single word.
- The complaint about the invoice, and the one about the plasterA gouged wall belongs to whoever owns it, which on moving day may not be your customer. Say who to tell and what to photograph.
- Seven in the evening, a loaded van and nobody picking upKeys at four, crew still loaded at seven, nobody answering. What a website can honestly do at that hour, and what it plainly cannot.
- A date changed in advance is a different animal to one that collapsesMoving a survey costs nothing. Moving a booked move is a crew and a vehicle, and a swap onto a month end can be repriced.
- Three sets of hours, and the one people actually meanThe office answers on weekdays. Crews load first thing and work Saturdays, and a storage warehouse keeps different hours again.
- Where the van stops, and the permit that took three weeksA bay suspension or dispensation is applied for weeks ahead, costs money, and is needed at the old address and at the new one.
- Two ways a customer loses sight of their houseA part load shares a vehicle and delivers in a window of days. Goods in store sit in sealed containers. Neither is trackable here.
- The move where the day matters more than the priceA move into sheltered housing, arranged by a daughter, with the bed made up first. Plus the lift, threshold and stairlift questions.
- The morning of the move, described before it happensThe crew arrives early, walks round, and starts. What to do the night before, and the things they are not allowed to load.
Questions
- Can it give a rough price so we do not lose the enquiry?
- The instinct is right and the method is wrong. A number given before a survey sets the customer's expectation and every later figure looks like an increase. What holds an enquiry is showing that you understand their move, which is why collecting the access details in the chat converts better than a guess does.
- What should it say about insurance?
- The limits, in the customer's words, every time the subject comes up. Say what the standard cover is, say the per item limit, say that self packed boxes are treated differently, and name the extended option. Customers hearing this early buy more cover. Customers hearing it late make complaints.
- Is it useful for storage enquiries?
- Very, because storage enquiries usually arrive in a panic after a completion slips and the questions are all factual: minimum period, rate, notice to get things out, whether access is possible. That is exactly the kind of material that answers well from published terms at eight in the evening.
- Will it book the survey?
- It does not write into a diary. It takes a name, an email and the details of the move, and that arrives with you as an enquiry, so the call your surveyor makes is to somebody whose postcodes and property type you already have.
Keep reading
- For a plumbing and heating firmSorting an emergency from a routine job, quoting call out rates, and never suggesting a fix on gas work that only a registered engineer may touch.
- For a electrical contractorCall out charges, EV charger enquiries and landlord certificates are answerable. A described electrical fault is an escalation, not a question.
- For a car dealershipStock moves daily and finance adverts are regulated, so this is mostly about what a dealership assistant must never claim to know.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.