When we shifted homes prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, all we cared about was our goods to be transferred safely while ignoring personal health and safety concerns. But now with the changing times, the foremost matters of concern are health and safety. Following the outbreak, there was a massive surge in home shifting across the country, as scores of individuals and families headed to hometown to alleviate added expenditure of rents, etc, and the only safe way that remained was doing a contact-less relocation.
Thanks to the advancements and betterment in the movers and packers space over the past year, contact-less relocation has now become a reality. All you need to do is choose the right partner for the purpose and the right things. Here go a few tips to ensure hassle-free and contactless shifting.
Video call survey
Gone are the days when you could allow a group of untrained professionals to come to your home for a random stock-taking of the shifting consignment. If you are committed to contactless shifting, go for a video call survey of the consignment. The most important thing related to shifting within or outside cities is item listing, and the same can be made easily over a telephonic conversation. It is the key to hassle-free movement as one proper item list is the solution for multiple problems, including a selection of vehicles and manpower.
Now how do we make sure that the estimates made are correct and won’t result in last-minute hiccups? To overcome this problem, we introduced a leeway of 10% without any adjustment against the cost. For vehicle selection, this goes up to a whopping 25%.
Safety Gadgets
Another vital point to remember during shifting is that the manpower that comes for the purpose is fully equipped with necessary safety gadgets, including face shields, gloves, masks, and hand sanitizers. Also, relying on the checklist, there should be minimal customer engagement for anything whatsoever. Customers can stay in separate rooms while the packing continues in other parts of the home.
Another important aspect pertaining to manpower is that whichever movers & packers partner you choose must get pre-KYC done of all its staffers. This would further make sure that there are no safety or criminal issues at any point.
Contactless move coordinator
It often happens during inter-city transit that there is no information on the whereabouts of the items. A dedicated move coordinator, our brainchild, is a perfect solution to fill this gap. A day prior to packing, coordinators get in touch with their assigned customers and keep them apprised from this point to the last mile delivery.
Besides, there should be a mechanism for daily automated updates through email and telephone in inter as well as intracity relocations. Taking it a notch forward, we delegated dedicated departments for different purposes, namely – Happiness center for pre-sales query, Customer contact center for knowhow, Escalation team to look urgently into any glitch, and a QA team that maintains the operational hygiene. To ease things further, there should be a toll-free number where consumers do not have to pay even for just a query.
Cashless payment
A strict no in today’s time is cash exchange. As Digital India is a reality already, there are a plethora of digital payment options that we use in our day-to-day lives via our smartphones. Before zeroing in on the mover & packer, do check if a digital payment mechanism is in place.
Machine sanitization
While packing, loading, transporting, unloading, and unpacking, the goods traverse through different surroundings and various geographical locations. Hence, sanitization is completely unavoidable. Before unloading the goods, there should be full sanitization using the right machinery.
This article is authored by Avinash Raghav, Co-Founder & MD of Shift Freight.
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