how to tell if a moving company is doing a good job

This page is for helping customers better assess if a moving company is doing a good job, so you can better know what's happening, correct things real-time and better protect yourself.

BEFORE YOUR MOVE

If you, as a moving customer, want to go the extra mile in seeing if the moving company you might hire is really good at doing moving work, one option is that you look at some recent sample pictures of their loads, taken throughout their loading process.  All good companies take these pictures throughout their loads for insurance and quality control purposes, so they should have plenty of pictures available to send to you if they're any good.  If they don't take these pictures, or don't want to show any to you, it's recommended that you not choose that moving company.  

If it's a company that has earned AGMC's gold star rating, you don't need to ask that company to see their load pictures, because their pictures are already shown here on this page for you to see.   If it's a company that has not earned AGMC's gold star, then it's an option for you to ask them to see some of their load pictures. 

You should see a similar pattern of tightness, square, heavy on bottom, furniture padded, items not jumbled, nothing poking into something else, furniture contact points padded.

In this last picture you can see that the back side of the sofas are protected by the box spring, so nothing can poke into the fabric on the back & stretch it out or leave indentations.

There also needs to be another tie-off wall at the back end of the truck, to hold the 2nd half of the load tight, and to prevent the load from shifting and leaning back against the roll-up door.

EVALUATING THE ACTUAL JOB OF YOUR MOVERS.

This section explains what elements you should be expecting from a top notch moving company doing their job right, so you can better know when it's not being done right.

When your crew actually starts loading your truck, it's advised that you, starting right at the beginning of the loading process, you start taking your own pictures of your own loading process, one taken about every 20 to 30 minutes or so, and text them to AGMC right as you take each picture (real-time). 

Unless you're confident enough that the job is being done sufficiently for you, repeat texting these pictures all the way thru the loading process, so that AGMC can respond to you in time to warn you of the need to correct problems before it's too late to do anything about them.   It doesn't cost you a penny to do this.

AGMC provides this load-quality check for free.  You don't need to go into the truck, just walk up to the back door opening and click.  You have the right to do this.  If they know they're doing a great job they will be proud of it and want you to take the pictures.  If they're nervous or bothered about you seeing or documenting what they're doing, that's not a good sign.

Besides you taking and texting to AGMC your loading process pictures, you should also be looking in your house to see if your furniture items are getting pad-wrapped well. 

Your pad-wrapped items should look like those shown in these pictures in this PAD-WRAPPING section. 

If your items aren't being pad-wrapped to look like these pictures, you can ask your loading crew to please pad-wrap your items so that they DO look like these pictures.  You can just send them a text link to this page.  It's your right as the hiring party to be able to state when you are not satisfied with some aspect of the way your truck is being loaded, and to have what you want corrected before you pay them.   

These are your items and your money you are spending to hire a service, so don't feel like you can't say anything.  These are the "industry standards" they should automatically be providing.

If your crew is pad-wrapping your items like is shown in these pictures, compliment your crew, because they're in the top 20% of movers out there, skill-wise.  And yes that does mean only about 20% of the movers out there actually do the "industry standards".

AN EXCEPTION TO PAD-WRAPPING

There is an exception to this advice about pad-wrapping.  It does save a chunk of loading time for the crew to skip or do a much lesser job of pad-wrapping, which saves you money if you're paying hourly.  If you've told your crew that your bigger priority is to save the most money possible on your mover's bill, and that it's your lesser priority to avoid some scratches & rubs on your furniture, then you should ignore this whole section about pad-wrapping and let the stuff go straight to the truck unwrapped, or minimally wrapped, which is sometimes called "droop blanketing" by movers.  It means furniture items are brought straight to the truck without being pad-wrapped before-hand, and then once in the truck a blanket is quickly drooped over furniture  just enough to buffer main contact points rather than the entire finished surface.  This can cut the time that it takes to get that furniture piece loaded by half.  But if you approve this short-cut on safety in exchange for time savings, you'd also be accepting liability for any scratches, rubs, marks, or dirtying that might happen. 

Your call.

TVs should not be loaded without being in a TV box.  It's not the box that protects the TV, it's the foam corners creating the space between the box and the screen, so the box flexing in doesn't touch the screen. Modern TV's can have the screen damaged with just a surprisingly little pressure on the screen.  You, as the paying customer, have the right to say "No, I want my TV in a TV box" to the crew you hired. 

  It's much better that you correct a problem when there's time to prevent damage than trying to get money back after damage has already happened. Most moving companies have a damage disclaimer that lets them pay only sixty cents per pound of the damaged item, and you're usually lucky if you get even that.  The time to stop all this is before it happens.

OTHER THINGS TO BE LOOKING FOR DURING THE LOADING PROCESS

You can also look for the other below listed signs that will tell you THE QUALITY OF YOUR LOADING CREW.   Usually, if you crew is doing the below listed very visible things correctly, they are also doing the other less visible things correctly.

Do they wear uniforms?  Do they have lots of moving blankets and organized equipment? 

Do they look for and document (or point out to you) pre-existing damage on your floors when they do the walk-thru with you?  If not, they're just going to say any new floor scratches were already there.

Do they clean the path between the truck and your front door to track less dirt into your house?

Do they put down doorway and floor protection?  Do they cover railings?

Try to notice if they stick extra padding between high-risk contact points.

If you're seeing all these things, your moving crew is doing what they're supposed to be doing, and is in the top ten percent of movers.

About 70% of companies do loads in what I would consider a sub-standard manner with at least some damage being normal, about 30% of which are just plain BAD with major damage occurring, needlessly. 

So it's a good idea to pay attention to this stuff ahead of time, while your crew is loading, and not just find out about it when your items are being unloaded.

ALSO, IF YOU'RE DOING A ONE WAY MOVE OUT OF TOWN, WHILE YOU'RE ON THE PHONE SHOPPING FOR A LOAD COMPANY