Yes, video surveys are the future … and now you can do them for free with a new service from Buzzmove. Damien Seaman, Head of Content and SEO at Buzzmove, explains.

At November’s Movers & Storers Show, moving company after moving company came to the Buzzmove stand to talk to us. They wanted to know more about how we can help them carry out pre-move surveys with their customers using video chat. And no wonder. Feedback on our new video survey tool from our removal company partners is that it could potentially double – or even triple – the number of pre-move surveys they do.

More surveys mean more paying jobs. And doing them online means you can carry out surveys across the whole of the UK and beyond. Without the time and expense of driving long distances. Maybe most important of all, you can carry out surveys outside business hours.

It’s more convenient for your customers. It’s more efficient for you. It could save £100s per week in staff and fuel costs and with more and more people doing all their shopping online, it’s only likely to become more popular. At The Movers & Storers Show, Simon Hood from John Mason International even went so far as to ask if physical surveys will even still exist in a few years’ time?

Of course, part of the reason for all this excitement is that we have a rival in this area. A company from the US, which has recently received some attention in The Mover magazine, about how its online video surveys could ‘revolutionise’ the industry.

Now, ‘revolutionise’ might be putting it a bit strong. As far as I’m concerned, video surveying is less about doing something new, and more about saving moving companies time and money doing what they already do best: building a personal relationship with new customers while making an accurate estimate of the time and cost of a moving job.

Video surveys are the future for this industry. That’s why we decided to offer our video survey tool for free. Movers can see the potential benefits and they’re keen to start. But there’s a lot about this new approach that remains unknown.

How many customers will be happy to carry out video surveys? How many of those surveys will convert compared to doing surveys face-to-face? How much is a survey worth to a moving company?

According to our competitor, the average cost of carrying out a survey is $240. But, speaking to our removal company partners, that figure seems like a gross over-estimate. According to Neville - our experienced in-house surveyor - the cost of a survey in London averages more like £30 per survey. The average from our moving company partners doesn’t go much higher – even those in sparsely-populated areas. But $240? Seems a bit steep to us.

The point is, our technology is always built in line with feedback from our partners. We’re constantly looking to improve. At present, our video survey tool also comes with an inventory tool, a pricing calculator, an online quote builder, and a platform companies can use to manage their leads all the way from initial contact to conversion. All for free. Plus they get free set up and training.

For any technology to work, it needs to make life easier. That’s what we aim to do – for moving companies and their customers. Not a bad deal for free, is it? To find out more about our new, free remote survey tool, visit www.buzzmovePRO.com

Photo: Damien Seaman, Head of Content and SEO at Buzzmove, addressing The Movers and Storers Show.