How To Deal With A Bad Moving Experience

1. Analyze What Happened
2. Contact Moving Company
3. Handling Things Calmly
4. Bottom Line

Just as with everything in life, there is no way to guarantee yourself a perfect moving experience. You may have done everything correctly, used all of the recommended checklists and even hired reputable movers. Even still, unusual and unexpected things happen. If you do end up having an unhappy or bad moving experience, there are some ways to deal with this. Follow these tips and ideas to help make things transition more smoothly.

Analyze What Happened

The first step in actually dealing with things is to try and figure out where they started going wrong. Then, try to think objectively about what could have been done at that point to prevent it. This could be something related to weather or maybe even the moving truck breaking down or having other mechanical problems. In such cases, these were pretty much out of your hands.

Sometimes, there were mistakes made that could have been done or handled differently. Miscommunication can sometimes cause problems. Maybe there was a scheduling conflict that went undetected or even an error in calculating the initial moving estimate.

Contact Moving Company

After a bit of quiet reflection, it is time to contact the moving company, either via phone or in person. You want to try and do this (at least initially) without indicating blame since you are still likely trying to figure out what actually happened. There is also a number of moving resources to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration website.

Just as an aside, this is a big reason to ensure that you are always able to reach your moving company. Having open lines of communication is the real key to success on moving day. Be sure you can contact them via email and phone at the very least...this may help you avoid any bad experiences in the first place.

Handling Things Calmly

Moving can be frustrating even in the best of circumstances. When problems arise, this can make things even tenser. However, getting angry or losing your temper will not solve anything. Instead, approach this with a calm and clear head, by:

• Taking a deep breath: Close your eyes, inhale and exhale deeply, allowing your entire body to relax. This should help clear thought to return.
• Assess things rationally: Think about different scenarios that could have led to the poor situation, but don't be too quick to assign blame just yet.
• Think about ways to solve the situation: Try and come up with some alternative plans or arrangements that could help to fix things or at least get them back on track, like rescheduling, or even a plan for obtaining compensation or extra insurance.

Bottom Line

Most problems can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. Handling things calmly and quickly will help everyone to get to this point much easier. Just remember that sometimes the unexpected does happen, deal with it and then move on.