Inside

• President's Message
• New CAM Supplier
• CAM’s First « Sign up & win » winner announced
• AMSA news
• Conference survey
• CAM Tips for the Road: Making a Good First Impression
• Mark your calendar

The board of directors and staff of the Canadian Association of Movers wish you, your staff and your families all the best for a happy holiday season and success in 2020.

Please note:  Our national office will be closed from December 21, 2019, to January 5, 2020.

First of all, I want to wish every one of you a wonderful holiday season, however, you spend it. My daughter is coming home from China for Christmas week (thankfully without a broken ankle) and it will be the first time she’s had Christmas with my entire family since she was 5 years old. Crazy to think that was 25 years ago! So, enjoy! I know I will.

Now, on to business.

I made what I consider a big error in the last newsletter when I didn’t catch a misspelling of one of our board members’ names. Naturally, I feel horrible about it because this director is a close partner for CAM – and who likes to hear or see their name spelt wrong? It would be have been so easy to double-check our work but we didn’t. It got me to thinking…

Errors happen frequently in our line of work. We’re human after all, and certainly not working in an industry that is foolproof. But there is one ‘error’ that is happening quite regularly and it’s a recent trend that I hope is not an omen for the future.

Complaints to CAM are on the rise from customers who find their bill has skyrocketed from what the estimate was. Naturally, because of our social media alerts about rogues substantially increasing their final bill, CAM is getting a growing number of complaints from consumers about their final tab.

Ironically, many of these complaints aren’t about rogues… more often than not, they are about our own CAM members who, for various reasons, do not have a good sense of just how much stuff is moving because they have not done a visual survey.

Moving is certainly different now than it was 10 or 15 years ago when the consumer wanted you in their home so that they could talk about their move and each item being moved. I always tried to book no more than four appointments a day, so that I had enough time to spend up to an hour and a half and have a cup of tea with the client (it was Nova Scotia after all and 100% responsible for me becoming a tea granny).

However, the trend these days is leaning towards the customer not wanting you in their home. In our rushed society, people are quite willing to give a list of what’s moving over the phone and are expecting that you, as a moving professional, will get the quote bang on, so they know exactly how much they have to pay.

As I explained in considerable detail to one consumer a few weeks ago, variances are inevitable. Even if you go into the home and look in every closet and under the bed, unless you lift every one of the stacked boxes or totes, you won’t accurately be able to determine the weight. But you have a fighting chance by being able to track how many packed boxes that there are if you actually SEE them, rather than taking the customers “oh and a few boxes” confirmation over the phone.

We’ve had some rather nasty complaints in the past year about some of our members ‘who are no better than a bunch of thieves’ – all because the weight differential was large enough (over 2,500 lbs in one case) that it caused a significant difference in the final bill…money that the customer did not plan for. Many of these complaints have dragged on for months, and some even longer, with escalating accusations and claims, both verbally and financially – adding stress that everyone who’s involved with the complaint could do without.

I know it’s not always easy or convenient to get to a home to see a shipment for yourself. In fact, it doesn’t make economical sense to tie up two hours in driving and finding a parking spot to see anything under 2,500 lbs. We get that, especially when you are going to get undercut by the fly-by-nighters anyway. However, wouldn’t it make sense to double-check the actual contents that are moving closer to the move date so that customer-perceived billing mistakes (and subsequent accusations of thievery) don’t happen?

If you’ve done a phone survey to give them an estimate, we strongly recommend that you follow up with a visual survey. There are tools available that can help you have a more accurate reading of what your customer is taking – without you having to leave the office. We have several suppliers who can help you with performing visual surveys. In a world that is shifting to online everything, if you aren’t using a surveying tool, maybe it’s time you consider it and get some practice in before the busy moving season.

If there’s one bit of advice I can give you from my soapbox it’s that, to save a lot of headaches, verify the shipment size a day or so before the crew arrives to load it. And if you’ve been burned by an error made with a move - figure out the reason, own up to it, don’t waste time assigning blame and learn from it, so it doesn’t happen again.

Welcome also to Richard Lavergne and Walkboardhood Canada as a new CAM member. Easy to store in the belly box and five minutes to install, this walkboard hood could save against a lot of potential injuries, especially at this time of year.

Learn more from Richard by clicking here.

Congratulations to Steve Barrow of Household Movers & Shippers Limited who is the first name drawn from our Sign Up & Win contest. Want to win coffee on us? Simply sign up your coworkers (here or at the « subscribe » button above) to receive their own copy of The Mover’s Edge newsletter and your office will have a chance to win one of the remaining Tim Hortons gift cards! Steve, your gift card is in the mail!

Effective December 6, 2019, Scott Michael resigned from his position as President and CEO of the American Moving and Storage Association, after 26 years of service to AMSA and its preceding organizations. Scott has been a great friend to CAM and we will dearly miss his advice and collaboration on many of our opportunities. John Becker, Vice President of military affairs and policy, has been appointed by the AMSA board as interim President to oversee day-to-day operations until a new President and CEO is in place. We look forward to our continued relationship with our neighbours to the South.

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We need your help.  Whether you were at our conference in Blue Mountain in November or not, we would love to hear about your thoughts on CAM’s annual conference.  This is a quick, confidential survey, so please take a few moments to answer a few questions.  Your responses will go a long way to help us shape our 25th-anniversary conference next November in Edmonton. Here’s the link.

In our line of business, moving day is, quite often, the first time you or your staff meet your customer.

It takes just a quick glance, maybe three seconds, for someone to evaluate you when you meet for the first time. The customer forms an opinion about you based on your appearance, your body language, your demeanour, your mannerisms, and how you are dressed and these first impressions can be nearly impossible to reverse or undo, and they often set the tone for the relationship that follows.

Here’s CAM’s takeaway on things you (or your crew) can easily do to make a good first impression. It's worth giving each new encounter your best shot.

1. Be on time.
2. Present yourself appropriately.
3. Be yourself.
4. Have a winning smile.
5. Be open and confident.
6. Use small talk.
7. Be positive.
8. Be courteous and attentive.

Read more here

It's about eleven months until we meet again for the 25^th Annual CAM Conference in Edmonton, Alberta.  Make sure you mark your calendar now – November 15-17, 2020, so you don’t miss out!  

CAM Golf 2020 will be taking place Monday, September 14th at the Carlisle Golf Club.  Tee-off is at 12:30 pm.  Circle the date!  More info will be coming out in the spring when there’s no snow on the ground!