Why the list is short on purpose

The subcontract problem

When a removal company offers you eight services, it is usually doing one and arranging the other seven. That is not dishonest in itself — plenty of good firms work that way — but it changes two things you should know about.

First, the enthusiasm for recommending a service is partly a function of the margin on arranging it. Second, when something goes wrong with the subcontracted part, you are dealing with a company that did not do the work and cannot fix it directly.

So we don’t arrange anything. When you need something we don’t do, we tell you what to search for, and occasionally who we’d use. There is nothing in it for us either way, which is the only reason the recommendation is worth having.

No salespeople

We don’t employ any. The person who looks at your move is the person who has to make the plan work on the day, which is a useful discipline: it is much harder to under-quote a job you personally have to turn up to.

It also means nobody rings you. If you ask for a quote you get a quote, and then silence until you reply. Several people a month tell us this was the thing that made them book.

Fixed quotes, and why

Hourly rates pay a remover more for being slow. Fixed quotes pay a remover more for being accurate. Neither system makes anyone honest, but only one of them points the incentive in the direction you want.

The cost of that choice is ours: when we misjudge a job, we carry it. That happens, and it is the correct place for the risk to sit — we are the ones who estimated it.

How we’d like to be judged

On whether the figure on the invoice matched the figure on the quote, whether the crew named on it turned up, whether anything was broken, and whether anybody had to chase us about anything. Those are all checkable, which is the point.