Playbook, removals company
The morning of the move, described before it happens
Nobody moves house often enough to know how the day runs, and most of what goes wrong is something nobody was told. The freezer that was not defrosted, the loft nobody emptied, the passports packed into a box that went on first, the petrol can in the shed the crew will not touch. All of it can be answered from a single document, and all of it is asked in the week before, usually late in the evening.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for first visit questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The customer has a specific job to do before the crew arrives and nobody else can do it: the loft emptied, the freezer defrosted, the shed cleared of anything that cannot be carried. The list is short and the consequences are not.
- There is a category of item the crew will refuse on the day whatever anybody says, including fuel, gas bottles, aerosols and open paint, and pets travel with the family rather than in the vehicle.
- The essentials box is the single piece of advice separating a good day from a bad one, because passports, chargers, medication, keys and the kettle end up on the last van otherwise.
- The day has a rhythm the customer cannot see: a walk round first, a loading order that puts the first thing needed at the top, and an unload at the far end that depends entirely on labels the customer wrote.
How it arrives
- what time will the crew get here on the day
- do we need to empty the loft ourselves
- what can you not put on the van
- can you take the fish tank
- what should we keep with us on the day
- do we need to be there the whole time
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The night before list | Defrost the freezer, empty the loft and the shed, take curtains down if they are coming, unplug and drain whatever needs it, and set aside anything not going. Short, ordered, and written as instructions rather than as tips. |
|---|---|
| The refusal list, item by item | Fuel, gas bottles, aerosols, open paint, certain chemicals, plants and food where a border is involved, pets, and anything you decline to carry such as cash or documents. People ask about this one object at a time, which is exactly what an assistant handles well. |
| The essentials box, spelled out | Passports, medication, chargers, keys, documents, the kettle and a few mugs. Named individually, because a word like essentials means nothing at all to somebody packing at eleven at night. |
| How the day runs | Roughly when the crew arrives, the walk round at the start, how labelling drives the unload, whether the crew break, and what the customer has to do at the far end. Removes most of what otherwise arrives as texts on the morning. |
The reply
The crew normally arrives first thing and starts with a walk round so everybody agrees what is going [1]. The night before, the freezer needs defrosting, the loft and shed need emptying, and anything not coming needs to be clearly separated. Keep an essentials box with you rather than on the van: passports, medication, chargers, keys, the kettle [2]. There are things the crew cannot load at all, including fuel, gas bottles, aerosols and open paint, and pets travel with you [3]. I cannot tell you what time your own crew will arrive, so the office is the place to check that nearer the day.
It runs in the order of the day rather than by topic, because that is how somebody thinking about next Tuesday reads it. The essentials box is given as objects rather than as a category, since the abstract version gets nodded at and ignored. The refusal list appears before anybody asks, which is the whole difference between a warning and an argument in a driveway.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks about a specific item that may be refused, asks what time their own crew arrives, or describes something unusual such as a safe, a piano or a large aquarium.
Whether we can take a particular item, and what time a crew is due, are both things I cannot see or decide. Leave your name, an email and your job reference or move date with a line about the item, and the office will confirm before the day.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a crew will arrive at a particular time, which depends on the run and the vehicle and becomes a promise argued about in a driveway.
- Never say a restricted item can be taken as an exception, since the crew on the day will refuse it and the customer will have made no other arrangement.
- Never tell somebody an unusual item such as a piano, a safe or a large aquarium is straightforward before anybody has looked at it.
- Never imply the customer can leave the property during the load where your terms require somebody to be present.
Questions
- Is this not just a checklist anybody could put on a page?
- It is a checklist, it is already on your page, and people still ask at eleven at night one item at a time. That is the shape of question a widget answers well: not the document, but the single line inside it that somebody needs right now.
- Can it tell a customer whether we will take a specific item?
- It can quote your refusal list and say what is on it. What it cannot do is make an exception, because an exception is the crew's decision on the day, and a customer told yes here will have arranged nothing else.
- Should the refusal list really be published?
- Yes, and early. Somebody who reads it a fortnight out takes the paint to the tip. Somebody who meets it at half past eight on moving day has a full shed, a loaded van and nowhere at all to put a gas bottle.
Keep reading
- Everything for a removals companyPrice depends on volume and access, so a survey comes first. Insurance limits are what customers misunderstand most, so say them plainly.
- Handling first visit questions in generalWhat to wear, where to park, how long it takes, whether they can bring somebody. Cheap to answer and disproportionately valuable.
- 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.
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.