Moving etc… is launching a new membership organisation at the Movers and Storers Show at Silverstone on Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd October.

The Moving etc… staff will be working on behalf of removers to promote premium-paying member companies to the public and the property industry. They will also actively campaign via a strategic marketing plan on behalf of movers, to educate the public so they get the message to contact removal companies weeks before their move is due to take place, thereby enabling the customer to better budget and prepare for their removal day.

 

Moving etc… also plans to lobby the government, estate agents, mortgage lenders and conveyancing solicitors to highlight some of the problems removers experience every day and change the property buying and selling process. “It’s not enough to just educate the public so they know which removal company to choose for their move,” said Jane Finch, the founder of the new membership organisation. “Banks, solicitors and estate agents need to become aware of the impact their industries have on ours, with late handover of keys, same day exchange and completion and short notice between exchange and completion. Not to mention cancelled moves due to delayed completion, or turned away work because the move falls on a day when the remover is fully booked.”

 

Getting the right message across to the public has been a problem for many years, and lots of movers complain that their membership organisation doesn’t do enough to create public awareness. Jane Finch believes this is an easy problem to tackle. “You just need to have a good marketing plan and strategy in place,” she said. “Consumers don’t do a Google search before they go out and buy a jar of coffee or a tube of toothpaste. You know the brands before you buy, because they have created awareness through their marketing.”

 

So why is Jane launching a new membership organisation? She said that non trade association members had given her valid reasons for not belonging so she felt she now knows what they are looking for. She believes that in the UK there could be as many as 20,000 removal companies, including man and van operations, and many of them want to belong to something. “It’s human nature to want to either belong - or rebel,” she said. “But even the rebels want to be a part of something. To fight for and work towards something they believe in. To have a common cause.”

 

At the heart of the new organisation is a grading system that aims to put companies in one of up to ten categories depending on whether they are new starters, multinationals, or somewhere in between.  Members will be graded according to their training procedures, health and safety, vehicle maintenance records, ability to carry out the job correctly, pricing structure, insurance claims, staff feedback and sustainability as a business, as well as their level of service to the public. They will also be graded according to customer feedback. “The new grading system will allow removers to know exactly where they sit on the scale and what steps they have to take to move up to the next level, and eventually even what type of person is missing from their team which is stopping them from moving forward.”

 

In charge of the grading system will be Mark Ratcliffe, the newly appointed Grading Committee Chairman. Mark has spent 30 years in the industry with A.1 Removals and, more recently, The Small Moving Company. After joining BAR in 1997 he became the Susses Area Secretary and, later, its chairman. This month Mark launches his new company Mark Ratcliffe Moving & Storage. “I am delighted to be joining Jane Finch and the team at Moving etc.... This is a very exciting venture and definitely something fresh and new that our industry desperately needs,” said Mark. “Everyone can see there are major differences between removers, and having personally experienced both huge expansion and major downsizing, it is so obvious that we need a practical way for removal companies to be graded. It will create transparency, fairness and clarity, both for the people in our industry and more importantly the customers we are all trying to sell our services to.”

 

Jane explained that the first phase of the grading system will be launched at the Movers and Storers Show. “It will enable members to gather their customer feedback into the online system. They can do this by leaving feedback cards for customers to complete and post back to Moving etc..., or directly through the system where the client completes a survey online which collates all the information on the website in the form of customer reviews.” The reviews could be viewed by other members of the public, enabling them to contact the mover of their choice. “The consumer will be able to search the website extensively, finding movers in their local area or their destination area very easily,” said Jane.

 

The second phase of the grading system will be industry feedback which will be launched in 2015.  The grading will be based on both sets of data.

 

“Being able to identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses means Moving etc… can better support movers and aid them by developing training programmes and business mentorship thereby raising standards across the board, not just for those who meet the criteria,” said Jane.

  

Photo:  Mark Ratcliffe, Grading Committee Chairman for Moving etc…