9 details of moving company sales people miss

What to take away

Why these nine and not others

A moving sale is not persuasion. The customer already wants to move; the choice is who gets let into the house.

Two quotes for the same household usually differ by labor assumptions, not by rate. The estimator who writes down what decides the hours wins the accuracy argument before the price is read out.

The nine details below live in the gap between what a customer says on the phone and what the crew meets on the day. Each is cheap to capture at the survey and expensive at delivery, where it turns into a change order, a claim, or a lost job.

The operations and workflow guide covers how to keep job files that make these details findable months later.

The nine details

1. The exact stopping point for the truck. Not the address, the parking spot. Street width, low branches, permit zones, and the hours a building allows a truck at its dock decide where the truck ends up.

Check Google Maps Street View and satellite imagery before the survey, and note the driveway slope. A street-use permit, where a city requires one, typically costs $25 to $150 in most cities and often needs filing several business days ahead. A crew parked two blocks out adds carry distance nobody priced.

2. Stair and elevator counts, with turns. Count flights, measure landing width, and check whether the sofa clears the rail. Record elevator dimensions and the door opening, not just the floor number.

Reserve the service elevator in writing. Many buildings release it in fixed windows, often two hours, through a portal or a paper form. Building management usually wants a certificate of insurance naming it as an additional insured, commonly at $1 million per occurrence. A booked window changes the schedule.

3. Long-carry distance from door to truck. Measured, not guessed. Use Google Earth's path tool or walk it with a wheel and write the number down.

Many carrier tariffs start long-carry charges past 75 feet, though the threshold varies by company and by tariff. This is the most common source of unpaid labor on an hourly move and of dispute on a flat-rate one.

4. Item count by category, not by room. Count boxes, furniture pieces, and oversize items separately. "Three-bedroom house" says nothing about the 400 books or the piano.

Video survey tools such as Yembo let a customer film each room, and the estimator still confirms counts on the inventory sheet. Pianos and safes often need a specialty crew and a stair or hoist charge.

5. What is not going. List items staying behind, items the customer moves, and anything bound for storage instead of the destination. Each one changes the load plan and sometimes the truck size.

Storage-in-transit is a tariffed service, often capped at about 30 days on an interstate move before it converts to permanent storage. Self-storage for a household typically runs $100 to $250 a month in most markets, depending on unit size and climate control.

6. Packing scope, split by who packs what. Full pack, partial pack, or customer-packed boxes. Mark every customer-packed carton on the inventory as owner-packed at the survey.

Carriers commonly decline damage claims on owner-packed cartons, so the estimator has to say so at the survey, not at the claim. Pricing a partial pack without naming that difference sets up the argument months later.

7. Valuation coverage chosen, and the released-value default. The customer picks between full-value protection and released value in the first conversation.

Interstate carriers must offer full-value protection, which pays replacement value and often comes with a deductible choice of $0, $250, or $500. The free default, released value, pays 60 cents per pound per article.

Third-party policies sold by brokers such as MovingInsurance.com cover gaps a carrier's valuation leaves. The pricing and profit guide walks through how each one prices.

8. Deposit and payment terms. Whether a deposit is taken, when it is refundable, and what the crew accepts on delivery. Deposits commonly run $50 to $500 or a percentage of the estimate, and some states regulate them on intrastate moves.

Many carriers want certified funds, a cashier's check or money order, before the truck is unloaded. Card acceptance varies, so put the accepted methods in writing with the estimate. A customer who learns on moving day that the crew takes no card writes a bad review.

9. The follow-up date. When the estimate goes out and when someone calls back. Book the cadence at send time: 24 hours, day three, day seven.

Most declined quotes die of silence, not price. Log the reason for each decline so the pattern is visible by month.

The estimate type is the risk decision

Binding puts the survey risk on the mover. Non-binding puts it on the customer. Not-to-exceed splits it. Say which one you are offering, and what it means, before the number.

On a non-binding interstate estimate, the mover cannot demand more than 110 percent of the estimate at delivery, and the balance must be billed within 30 days. A customer who finds out at delivery that the figure was non-binding was not sold. They were surprised, and surprise produces chargebacks and complaints.

For interstate moves, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Protect Your Move materials spell out what a customer is entitled to know, including the mover-versus-broker distinction. Assume the customer has read them.

Pricing the labor behind the nine

Estimator productivity is crew-hours per cubic foot under ordinary access, and it comes from your own job sheets. The crew rate they multiply it by is loaded labor, not the wage.

Set the wage component against the Bureau of Labor Statistics wage tables, which publish metropolitan-area estimates for movers and drivers. That keeps the estimate tied to the local labor market instead of last year's number.

Sizing the fleet for the streets you sell into is treated in the equipment and setup guide.

Accounts skip the same details differently

Property managers, corporate relocation departments, and senior communities buy a standard, not a move. So do relocation management companies such as Cartus, SIRVA, and Weichert Workforce Mobility, which send out bid schedules. They still need all nine details captured per job, but the proposal is a schedule and a service standard.

The services and packages guide covers how packing, storage, and specialty handling get defined so an account schedule can price them. The hiring and training guide covers turning a crew lead into the supervisor who runs those accounts.

Peak season and the end of the month

Household demand clusters twice: summer, and the last days of every month when leases end and closings complete. Most leases end on the last day of a month, which pushes deliveries into the same three-day window.

In a full week the yard is choosing customers. So the estimate carries a validity date, and the calendar is confirmed before the quote goes out.

In a quiet week the temptation is to discount. Discount the date instead. Offer the mid-month or mid-week slot at the standard rate rather than the peak slot at a lower one.

Claims you may and may not make

Sales language is advertising. "Fully licensed and insured," "no hidden fees," "five-star service": each claim has to be true and provable.

The Federal Trade Commission's advertising FAQs for small businesses set that standard, endorsements and reviews included. An undisclosed incentive for a review is a problem.

"Licensed" has a specific meaning too. For interstate moves, check the carrier's USDOT and MC numbers in the FMCSA register. Name the authority you hold and the regulator that governs the move, and let the customer check it. The licensing and compliance guide explains where those records live.

The documents are the system

Every stage leaves a document. Filed under the job number, they are the sales system.

Intake sheets show where inquiries come from. Declined estimates show why jobs are lost. Surveys show which estimator's figures hold. Claims show which promises were not kept.

The IRS guidance on what kind of records to keep asks for a system that clearly shows income. A job file running from intake to invoice does that and doubles as your sales review.

Read the declined file monthly and sort by reason. Price means check whether a survey was done. Date means check whether the calendar was full or merely unconfirmed. Silence means the follow-up step is missing.

Common questions

Should I charge for the survey?

Your call, and it depends on your market. A free survey is a sales cost that pays for itself in accurate pricing. A paid survey filters shoppers but loses some real customers. Either way, no flat figure goes out without one.

How fast should an estimate follow the survey?

Fast enough that the customer still remembers the estimator's name. Same day is the standard they will compare you against, even if you never hear who set it.

What close rate should I expect?

Nobody can tell you from a page. Measure your own by stage and fix the stage with the biggest drop first. The nine details above are the cheapest place to start, because a missed detail shows up as a lost job or a change order.