Playbook, removals company
Pricing a move on volume and access rather than on bedrooms
The customer and the removals firm are using different units and neither of them says so. The customer counts bedrooms. The firm counts cubic volume and how far the crew has to carry it. Until somebody says that out loud, every exchange about price is two people talking past each other, which is why the good reply starts by correcting the unit.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for quotes and estimates holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Customers describe a move in bedrooms and the trade prices it in volume, so the question and the answer are in different currencies before anybody has mentioned money.
- Access is roughly half the price and is invisible in any description: stairs without a lift, a long carry from where the van can actually stop, a parking suspension, a lane at the other end the vehicle will not fit down.
- The survey is now often a video call of about twenty minutes, which removes the objection people actually hold, and a large number of customers do not know it is an option.
- The date is a price input in a way it is not in the other trades here, because completions cluster at month end and on Fridays and the whole industry is busy on the same days.
How it arrives
- how much to move a three bed semi
- can you give me a ballpark figure
- do you charge by the hour or for the job
- is the survey free
- we are on the third floor with no lift, does that change it
- can you quote from photos
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How you price, in your own variables | Volume, access at both ends, distance, stairs and lifts, parking and permits, day of the week and time of the month. Stated as a method, because the method is more persuasive than a from price. |
|---|---|
| The survey, in person and on video, and what it settles | How long it takes, whether it costs anything, what the surveyor is measuring, and how fast the quote follows. The video option deserves its own sentence because it is the thing that removes the objection. |
| The access questions you need answered before a surveyor calls | Both postcodes, property type at each end, which floor, lift or no lift, and the parking situation. Five facts that turn a chat into a productive survey call. |
| How long a quote holds, and what changes it | A validity period, and the changes that reopen it: more volume than surveyed, a different date, a change of address in the chain. Written before the move rather than argued afterwards. |
The reply
The price comes from two things: how much there is, measured as volume rather than by bedrooms, and how hard it is to get to at both ends. That is why we survey instead of quoting from a description, and the survey can be done on a video call in about twenty minutes at no cost. If you tell me both postcodes, the property type at each end, which floor you are on and what the parking is like, that goes straight to a surveyor and the call will be a short one.
It replaces the customer's unit with the real one in the opening sentence, which is the misunderstanding the whole page exists to fix. Then it collects the five access facts, so the conversation ends as a survey booking rather than as a lead somebody has to chase.
Where it stops
The trigger. Any request for a figure or a range, and any move with something unusual in it: a piano, a safe, a large aquarium, anything needing a hoist or a crane.
I cannot put a number on a move, and a guess would only get in the way of the real one. Leave your name, an email and both postcodes and a surveyor will get in touch to arrange twenty minutes on a video call.
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
- A price, a range, or a comparison to a similar move.
- That a move can be priced from photographs or a room count.
- That a particular date or crew is free.
- That parking or a permit will not be a problem before anybody has looked at the street.
Questions
- We lose enquiries by not giving a figure. What do we do instead?
- Collect the access facts. An enquiry where the visitor has told you the floor, the lift and the parking has invested something, and it converts far better than one where they got a number and went off to compare it with three others.
- Is the video survey worth leading with?
- It is the strongest thing on this page. The objection to a survey has always been having a stranger walk round the house on a weekday, and twenty minutes on a video call at eight in the evening removes it entirely. Say so before anybody has to ask.
- What about the month end pricing question?
- Publish the fact that the date affects the price, without publishing a formula. Customers who know completions cluster at month end understand it immediately, and the ones with flexibility will ask about a Tuesday, which is a conversation you want.
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 quotes and estimates in generalWhat has to be known before a number is possible, how the scoping step works, and how to answer without stonewalling or inventing a figure.
- 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.
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