Boxing Clever

The first signs of our impending move started today.

We have had a constant stream of removal men coming and going here today giving us quotes. We haven't had to do this with the previous two moves as we have basically moved up and down this street, and we just got a man with a van to move the beds and cupboards. As we are actually leaving this village, we really need a proper removal company this time. It's been quite entertaining watching the different ways they all tried to sell their services. Here is a breakdown of the day ...

Removal Company One: The first chap looked very professional, he came armed with an iPad. He went around, and tapped away on the screen and put all our worldly goods into it. Now I expected this clever app to spit us out an instant quote, but no he was going to email it to me tomorrow ... that did bewilder me a bit, and seemed a tragic waste of technology! He was in an out in 5 minutes.

Removal Company Two: He was mister casual dude. Jeans, Vans, shirt and jacket. He was your buddy to help you move. No iPad, but a company branded pad with neat little boxes to tick and quantify. Again, no instant quote, and was in and gone in about 15 minutes.

Removal Company Three: Man with a van. He had a simple A4 pad in which he jotted stuff down, and was very chatty and was into his heavy metal. He gave us an instant quote (see how easy it is), but more importantly .. he may need a new accountant, and we pointed out he seemed to be being ripped off on the amount he was being charged for the work that was getting done! We liked him!

Removal Company Four: Where do I even begin! He came in like a small tornado of noise and enthusiasm! He did the whole build up a rapport thing asking us what we did. He then regaled us with his entire career to date. He was a financial advisor for a company, rose to the top the tree but got made redundant, he then worked in a bank, and got to the top, and got made redundant. He then went to this removal company and immediately saw what changes that needed to be made, and his new boss took on board and the company has since become massive. He then gave us a fifteen lecture on how to run our company, what sort of software to use, how to advertise, where to advertise, what to put in the advert and what doors to knock. We were looking at our wedding photos when he arrived, we were rather pleased he didn't clock this, as we suspected he would have started dishing out relationship tips and sex advice! After he had done the same check list as the others, he then gave us another ten minute spiel on how to pack boxes and label them, and how to run your move as smoothly as possible. He was here for an hour .. I was exhausted when he left! No instant quote, email the next day, with a follow up phone call and another one the following week! This apparently the most professional way of doing it in his opinion ... he had a lot of those!

Removal Company Five: Phoned, gave him a rough list, he gave me a quote! Simples!

Quite a day!