Three Reasons You Should Skip the Broker When Moving
Moving is full of new possibilities, excitement, and—if we’re being honest—quite a bit of stress. What if we told you, however, about a way to make your move much easier with less stress and even fewer costs?
The key to unlocking these benefits is to skip the broker and work directly with a moving company. Why? Well, it all comes down to three things: control, cost, and communication. In this post, we’ll be giving you a quick rundown on what a moving broker is and why you should steer clear at all costs.
What is a Moving Broker, Anyway?
A moving broker is a professional who connects moving companies with customers who are moving. While it seems as though working with a broker can save you time by quickly connecting you to a great moving company, working with brokers can create much more trouble than they’re worth.
At On The Move, we maintain high-quality service at all times, and never work with brokers because crucial aspects of the move are lost in the process, as shown below.
Why You Should Stay Away
While meeting with a broker, you’re able to connect with them. They learn about your needs during the move, your family, your new job—whatever has you relocating. It is a personal experience and can help them find the right moving company for you.
It all seems perfect until it’s the big day arrives and your movers are late. Or worse, they’re on time but your moving costs have doubled. These are real everyday scenarios that happen to both families and businesses when dealing with a broker, and here’s why.
Cost
When you pay your moving fees to the broker, they take upwards of 20{17285e4506dd7ad3ca06d7ec6245bfdff72c4c71b9b44c55518333c0b794a018} for themselves (often touted as a down payment) and give the rest to the moving company, or have the customer pay the moving company when they job is done.
They often promise a monetary figure and the customer agrees to the price. In this scenario, the customer has just lost that 20{17285e4506dd7ad3ca06d7ec6245bfdff72c4c71b9b44c55518333c0b794a018}, and would have kept it had they gone directly to the moving company themselves.
Control
Both the movers and the ones who need to be moved lose control in this situation. Since one person, the broker, has set everything up and knows all the details, the situation loses both focus and control when that person drops out of the picture. This is common, as most broker services only extend to connecting moving families to relocation companies. That’s it.
Communication
Since the person with all of the instructions and who has made all of the promises is gone, it is now up to the moving company and family to communicate the details and make sure nothing was missed.
It is, of course, part of the broker’s responsibilities to communicate all customer needs to the moving company, but what if one small detail is lost in translation? What if that small detail turns out to be a huge factor? For example, what if the move is supposed to take place at 7:00 am, but the movers were told 7:00 pm? That’s a big difference in such a little detail!
Alternatively, the moving company may have been told they were moving a 2-bedroom home and quoted the broker accordingly, but when they show up to the job, it turns out the customer owns a 5-bedroom home, resulting in unexpected price increases for the customer.
We’ve said it before, but it needs repeating: at On The Move, we refuse to use brokers and instead prefer to work directly with our customers to ensure costs, control, and communication aren’t lost in translation.
If you’ve got a big move coming up, then contact us today and let our experts make your move less stressful and more efficient.
