How Do You Create Accurate Estimates for a Moving Company?

When creating estimates for a potential mover client, time and accuracy are of the essence. Inaccurate estimates could cost you your customers’ trust and future revenue for your moving company. Additionally, as movers are receiving estimates from multiple moving companies, you don’t want to be the last estimate provided — especially if your estimate comes in after the mover has already hired another moving company!

Are you missing out on sales because your competitors got there first?

How to Build Consistent, Accurate and Timely Estimates

The most successful companies are able to generate accurate estimates in a matter of minutes — not hours, and certainly not days. 

Here are the signs (which you may recognize) that your estimates are not optimized for closing more sales:

• You’re spending hours building estimates using Excel sheets and calculators.

• Your estimates are inconsistent and new hires struggle to build accurate estimates quickly.
• You’re manually filling out cube-sheets to take inventory.
• You’re sending rough estimates in Word docs via email, which is damaging your professional image.
• You’re fumbling through multiple tools to make and send estimates that oftentimes get lost after hours of headache.

If any of these apply to your moving company, your suboptimal estimating system is working against you, not for you. Don’t let estimates be the bottleneck in your sales process.

With sophisticated yet simple estimating software, you can not only speed up the estimating process, you can make it more accurate as well. These two factors — speed and accuracy — are what wins business and closes deals. 

Such a system allows your customers to fill out inventory themselves on their phones using the customer portal. It will also make reviewing inventory easier for the customer and your crew with a room-based inventory list. And it even enables the moving company to upsell your customers on materials and additional services and plug them in without leaving your inventory workflow.

Create Estimates to Win More Jobs, Grow More Business

If you’re starting from scratch each time an estimate needs to be generated for a customer, you’re slowing things down and creating more work for your team and for the mover. Or if you’re still using cube sheets and duplicating inventory to excel sheets to build estimates, you’re doubling the necessary steps and creating built-in margin for error.

Keep in mind that the first estimate you provide for a potential customer may just be the first impression your company is making on a possibly lifelong client. Don’t let that first impression be a dull Word-based estimate when it can be a professional, modern-looking document that is easy for customers to understand and makes a great first brand impression. 

Smart Estimates by SmartMoving do all of this and more, solving the issue of how to create accurate estimates for a moving company while serving as a sales and marketing tool all in one. Not only can moving companies make an impression on their customers with beautifully designed, branded estimates that look great on all devices, they can send estimates via text or email and reach potential customers before their competitors do.

From the customers’ point of view, everything becomes easier, faster, and a more pleasant moving experience. They can view estimates on demand and even sign off on estimates digitally on their phones. You can even let your customers pay the deposit from their phones using the customer portal, so the job gets locked in and executed almost immediately.

We all know how stressful moving can be for people and companies. The last thing a moving company wants to do is to add to that stress level and workload for the mover. The easier a moving company makes things, from the moment an estimate is requested, the more they will win business, earn future referrals, and create a profitable roster of satisfied customers.

SmartMoving helps movers maximize the efficiency and productivity of every part of a moving business, including creating accurate estimates. SmartMoving eliminates the need for numerous apps and programs by consolidating everything your moving business needs in one comprehensive tool.