Virtual Surveys Expectations of Your Service Provider
As your transferee begins to prepare for their relocation, they face an extensive list of tasks. Among those tasks is being available to each service partner company, for discussion of their concerns and needs. The moving company, as a service partner, will need to perform a survey of the transferee s household goods. Traditionally, this meeting takes place in person at the transferee s residence with a local representative of the moving company. The meeting generally takes place during regular business hours, necessitating the transferee (or a family member) to take time off of work for the meeting (not always easy to schedule in a busy transferee s life). Today, progress-minded service providers are changing how they approach the pre-move survey. Emphasis is placed on leveraging technology-based solutions with best practices, ensuring great outcomes for your relocating employees. Today, progress-minded service providers are changing how they approach the pre-move survey.
Expectations of Your Service Provider As mentioned earlier, after initial contact is made between your household goods moving partner and the transferee, the pre-move survey is scheduled. Traditionally, the survey itself is an in-home meeting where a representative from the moving partner walks through the home with the transferee assessing items to be moved. All of this is in an effort to determine the services required so that the move is properly planned for and an accurate estimate of the moving charges can be provided. The traditional in-home survey is a decades-old practice that has been reliably utilized to determine the weight of a transferee s goods, as well as assessing all materials required for the move. Historically, the moving and storage industry has not been an early adopter of cutting edge technology, relying instead on established industry practices. In-home surveys are not always convenient either. Surveys are usually during regular work hours, and require the transferee s presence. Today, expectations of transferees are evolving, with consumer purchasing trends shifting to a more on-demand, instant-gratification mind-set. Additionally, Millennials are growing more and more influential in shaping how businesses interact with their customers. Opportunity to improve can be found when the household goods provider chooses to meet these challenges with simple but effective utilization of technology. This crossroads allows for the moving industry to update age-old processes and services to better tailor solutions to its customers. Enter: the virtual survey.
What is a Virtual Survey? Virtual surveys are an alternative to the traditional in-home move survey, and the entire process is solely focused on the transferee s experience and convenience. While there are various platforms and approaches, all are utilizing today s technology and the customer s personal device (tablet, mobile phone, etc). Some require the transferee to do all of the work and upload a video without any assistance or support from the moving company. Others utilize a video call similar to Skype or Apple s Facetime to record an inventory of the entire home and what the transferee intends to move. Others leverage purpose-built platforms to guide the transferee through recording and uploading a documented survey of their home and possessions to be moved. The best results take place when the mover stays focused on the customer experience. Transferees do not survey their possessions on a regular basis, and never for the purposes of preparing for a move, so the mover should provide a highly-trained customer service videographer on the other end of the video call. This professional focuses fully on the customer and guides them as they download and install the software app, and identify their goods to be shipped. The videographer also leads the discussion and takes note of any potential access restrictions for the moving van, items that may need special crating, and anything additional that will best help the Professional Van Operator and moving crew when they arrive in the transferee s home. Virtual surveys are growing in usage among major relocation service providers. How your Service Provider Should Go Above and Beyond What does this mean? Increased flexibility and convenience. Flexible scheduling The biggest (and most obvious) difference between a traditional in-home survey and a virtual survey is the need for a qualified surveyor to physically tour the home. For virtual surveys that is not necessary. What does this mean? Increased flexibility and convenience. Virtual surveys allow for busy professionals to get a moving estimate in off hours outside of the traditional 9AM-5PM Monday through Friday work week. Some companies even offer virtual surveys seven days a week, at the transferee s convenience. Because of this benefit, the transferee is allowed to control more aspects of their move and feel less inconvenienced by it as opposed to being at the mercy of the surveyor s schedule.
Expert Virtual Surveyors At the center of every move is one simple goal: to create the best possible experience for the individual or family moving. The best moving companies understand this and embrace it throughout all aspects of the move; the survey is no exception. The expert videographers or virtual surveyors who perform the video survey with customers are focused entirely on the customer, their needs and performing a pleasant, detailed and highly accurate survey. Their goal is to ensure a good experience for the transferee. At the same time, they must ensure that the quality of the survey is excellent, by guiding the transferee through the survey process and their home with a strong attention to detail. The entire focus of the video survey is the survey. Preparing the costs and detailing the move requirements comes at a later time after the video survey has been assessed by the relocation company. With technology taking place instead of direct human interaction, hiccups can occur from time to time. The best companies ensure that their virtual surveyors and videographers on the other end of the phone also double as technical experts on the video software. If issues do arise, however infrequent, they are knowledgeable and trained to seamlessly troubleshoot the issue on the spot and continue providing a great survey experience to the transferee. Because so much of the move depends on the results of the survey, expert virtual surveyors and videographers need to be as detailoriented as possible. The process of the survey remains the same (as an in-person survey) even though the avenue for which it is conducted is different. The surveyor will still ask for a walkthrough of the entire home, including the basement, attic, garage, sheds, etc., asking the transferee to open cabinets, closets, and drawers. Much detail is needed to identify the amount of packing material that will be required for the move, what crew size the driver will need to bring along and if any special crating is needed for those uncommonly sized or shaped items. Finally, the surveyor will need to evaluate what access to the home looks like in order to determine if an 85 foot long tractor-trailer can get close to the home, or if a shuttle is needed instead.
HOW CAN I RECEIVE THIS BENEFIT FOR MY ORGANIZATION? If you re curious about the availability of virtual surveys for your transferees, ask your organization s relocation service provider. Several of the major van lines have begun to offer this benefit to your transferees. However, not all virtual survey processes are alike. Ask about the training of the virtual surveyors, the hours the service is available and the reliability of their process. In the event that your relocation service provider does not offer virtual surveys in their arsenal of available services, ask them to consider adding it. Properly executed, virtual surveys stand to help everyone involved as it allows flexibility for the transferee and the relocation company alike. As an alternative, you could consider trying a relocation service provider that does offer the benefit of virtual surveys. Stevens Worldwide Van Lines is a relocation service provider that has years of experience administering virtual surveys to customers. If you re interested in learning about how Stevens performs the surveys, we encourage you to contact us by e-mail at talentmobility@stevensworldwide.com. Visit stevensworldwide.com to lean more about what makes us The Way to Move! TM Follow Us on Social! Sources: https://www.worldwideerc.org/article/virtual-reality-tools https://www.worldwideerc.org/article/the-evolution-of-technology-alive-and-flourishing-in-the-moving-and-storage-industry