HAPPY NEW YEAR.
We recently decided on a massive home and office move. Every time we move, I swear I’ll never do it again and 7 years later I forget and we do it all over again!
This move was from a house we had designed and built ourselves to a new build. The difference between the 2 dwellings was fascinating. Like, when did builders start taking away all the topsoil, covering a whole section in rubble and then putting 2 inches of topsoil back to give the illusion of a garden? We discovered this challenge when we needed a pickaxe to plant some veggies.
Because this was a massive move, we needed help from a variety of tradespeople. I was delighted with some of the tradies and wholly unimpressed with others so I thought I’d share those differences in customer care (or lack thereof) with my readers, letting you know who to work with and who to avoid if you too are planning a move.
I’ve graded each supplier on 3 qualities and marked them from 1 (abysmal) to 10 (brilliant):
- Initial contact
- Actual quality of job done
- Post care
Crown Relocations. We chose ‘Crown’ because we felt they would be 100% reliable. The last time we moved home and office, there was significant damage to our furniture and a few precious items went missing.
Initial contact was great, except they were reluctant to send someone out to view the contents and therefore assess the size of truck needed! I felt that was quite bizarre and actually insisted someone needed to come out. We have a lot of ‘stuff’ with 2 offices and a 4 bedroomed house. Eventually someone did view the contents, which we felt was a good sign. However, on the day of the move the poor guys walked around the house and realised they didn’t have a big enough truck!! Fortunately, we were moving a very short distance, but it required TWO trips to complete the job. Imagine if we’d been moving to another city! The guys on the day were brilliant and their customer service person did call afterwards to apologise for the mistake. 9/10
Smith & Son. We’d bought a new build and for some reason, it had no pantry, no linen cupboard and was very scant on storage, so we needed help. We contacted Smith and Son and they were absolutely brilliant, constantly going the extra mile to help us put up heavy pictures and move heavy furniture as well as doing the job we’d employed them for. 10/10
Keven’s Curtains. The house had no window dressing so we brought in Keven’s because we’d used them for our previous house so we already knew they were great. The one thing they do which other businesses can learn from is an itemised quote, and I mean ‘itemised’. Literally everything is costed and included in their quote. Once again, awesome service when they came to fit everything and great after customer care. 10/10
Kitchen Inspirations. Because the house had no pantry and very little storage, Smith & Sons brought in Kitchen Inspirations to build storage for us in the garage. Brilliant quality, brilliant service, awesome customer care and excellent AFTER care. 10/10
Builder’s Crack. What a find. My husband is an accountant so not a handyman. I needed help with the garden of rubble; I needed someone to change a few taps; I needed someone to escape-proof the garden for our elderly cat and I needed someone to help with technology issues (more on that later), I found everyone I needed on Builder’s Crack. Brilliant system for anyone who needs odd jobs done; who doesn’t want to wait a month for a tradie and doesn’t want to be ripped off financially. 10/10
Wilson & Nicholson Upholsterers. We had a particularly comfy sofa which had seen better days, we decided to re-upholster it even knowing that we could have bought a new one for a fraction of the cost of doing that. We chose Wilson and Nicholson. What a mistake. The settee arrived back and I was horribly disappointed. There was a pull in the fabric, the back of the settee looked ‘lumpy’ and some of the seams looked very fragile. I called and left several messages. I received not one single call back. Philip had zero interest. Which is really short sighted because I’ve now told 3 friends, all who were doing some re-upholstery DO NOT USE WILSON & NICHOLSON. He never even got my name right – just saying. I’ve since found another amazing upholsterer on Builders Crack (Zahid Refurbishment) who did a 2nd piece of furniture for me and will be my go to person in future and the person I recommend to anyone who enquires.
Wilson & Nicholson 2/10
Zahid Refurbishment 10/10
Technology experts. What the new house lacked in storage space it made up in an abundance of the latest technology. We have 2 offices to run, 2 smart TVs and all manner of smart technology that needed to be able to talk to each other. To set everything up we contacted Expert Geeks. I lost count of how many times they came out and how much it cost us to never get things working! In the end, we went via Builders Crack again and found Rusli at Tech-Rescue. What a difference. It took him 2 hours to undo the mess the previous guy had created and we now have smart technology throughout the house that actually WORKS!
Expert Geeks 2/10
Tech-Rescue 10/10
So there you have it. We moved, we survived, we function! A massive thanks to all the amazing people who helped us and a reminder to anyone about to move NOT to use the people I graded a 2/10.
And my final thought:
“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.”
– Sally Gronow.