This Company is Awful! The Power of Moving Services Reviews

In the service industry, few things are more important than the actual service that a customer receives. Moving companies get a bad reputation around the entirety of Canada and North America because of the few that ruin it for everyone. Fly-by-night companies and incompetent workers are important things to avoid in hiring a moving company. That’s where reviews can come in handy. 

Mind you, you have to take moving company reviews with a grain of salt. People are fickle by nature and a lot of people won’t even take the time to post a review of a business unless they had a really bad experience. Therefore, the information that you find is likely to be at least a bit skewed. The majority of the reviews that you read will either rave about an excellent service or rant about how terrible the company was, what the service was missing, or how they were ripped off. 

Don’t Start with Reviews

Reading about others’ experiences with a moving service is a good way to get valuable information. However, you first have to vet a few companies and narrow down your options. If you’re getting ready to move, you don’t have hours to spend reading reviews on the thousands of cross-country movers in Canada. Pick three to five companies that seem to have a solid reputation and then go read a few of their reviews. You don’t have to read them all. Just check out some that were good, some of the bad ones, and a few of the neutral reviews, if there are any. 

What Can Reviews Tell Me That Movers Themselves Can’t?

The moving company isn’t going to tell you about that one time they dropped someone’s precious family heirloom and ruined it, because that’s just bad business. It may have only happened once in a thousand or more moves, but it still happened. A consumer review, on the other hand, will tell you what the service is actually like. You can learn a lot from reading other reviews, including:

• What to expect on the day of the move, including whether or not they show up on time, have logistical issues, or if there is anything you should know that the moving company doesn’t mention. 
• If there are hidden fees in the moving costs that you might have overlooked. Some companies will try to charge hourly rates along with mileage for local moves, for example, but not bother to tell you that you’re paying both until you get the bill. Other people who have used the service will be the first to tell you exactly what they paid for. 
• Whether the company has a good response time for returning calls, performing estimates, and providing any electronic communication. A company that you can’t get ahold of is not a company that you want to work with, after all. Movers should be attentive, prompt, and act like they want your business. 
• Situational stories and anecdotes that give you more insight to the laborers’ professionalism, training and experience, and work ethic. These are all important in a professional moving company. 
• Companies that don’t discuss their insurance and licensure may not have them, but a lot of people don’t think to ask. They assume that movers are movers, but that isn’t the case at all. If you’re struggling to find information on a company, reviews can teach you a lot. Of course, if you are struggling to find information, that might be a red flag. 

Don’t Skip the Research

The best place to get information about a moving company is still by talking to the moving company. Reading reviews doesn’t mean that you should skip this step. It is simply going to provide you with additional information to help you make the right decision about your moving service. You should still use a third-party service to get moving estimates for cross-country moves in Canada from multiple companies and research a little about them so that you can choose the best people for the job. 

When you contact movers for more information or an estimate, here are some of the things you should ask:

• Do you charge hourly or by the mile?

You need to know what you’re paying for. Some companies will charge mileage rates from the business to your house or apartment and then start hourly rates once the service actually begins. Others will attempt to charge both. Some may want to use mileage for cross-country moves when in most cases it’s cheaper to go with a flat-rate service when you are moving long distance. 

• How long have you been in business?

In the moving industry, longevity definitely says something about a company and their reputation. It is hard to start a moving company, let alone maintain one, with such a bad reputation preceding them in most cases. If you check to see how long movers have been around, you will be able to trust their services more because you know they have been at it for a while. If you do find a newer company, that’s fine, but you need to make sure they didn’t open the doors yesterday. 

• Are you licensed and insured? 

Surprisingly, a lot of people don’t check into this. In some cases, movers will forego proper insurance and licensing to cut costs. Then, they will charge attractively cheap moving rates to lure you in. This is not a trap you want to get into. Most moving companies will openly disclose information about their professional licensing, insurance, and other operational requirements on their website and in their physical office. If they don’t, ask. If they’re wary to discuss the topic, they’re probably not worth your time. 

• Are your trucks regulated and certified?

Again, you have to make sure that you and your belongings are protected, including while they’re in transit. Aside from it being big enough, most people don’t think twice about the actual moving truck or the process of transporting their belongings. All moving companies that utilize box trucks should have proper licensing from the appropriate transportation department, which allows them to safely operate as business vehicles. 

Now that you know a little more about your movers, you can go on to reading reviews to get the truth and find out whether you can trust the information you were given. That way, you’ll know you hired the best movers every time.