Date: November, 1999
To: moving@avatar-moving.com
From: A Thread
Subject: AMS-Forum More on Binding Estimates
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Gary Duke wrote:
>>>Patrick: With all due respect, I'm not buying it. There's something you're not telling us and I am assuming you are in a metropolitan area with a competitive market.<<<

Patrick Griffin Replied:
What I am not telling you Gary is I want to convince you all to give non-binding estimates, then I can go out and book 90 percent by giving binding prices. You see it's all a big conspiracy.............now with this 90 percent success rate I will be very busy but I will make little or no money, drivers will be mad at me, my office staff will be tearing their hair out re-binding the price, my salespeople will be mad because I have to charge them back, my Van Line will not pickup the shipments but I will be successful

Gary Duke wrote:
<<<And an even greater "Differentiation" and an even more superior product for the shipper is if I give a Not to Exceed Estimate, whereby I can assure the shipper if I have possibly over-estimated his move, he will realize the savings when the actual weight and services are calculated. Then I have matched your best selling point (Your final cost may be less) and trumped it with a firm ceiling cost, which your non-binding estimate does not offer.<<<

Patrick Griffin Replied:
To play a zero sum game here if the binding estimate is so much better for the customer isn't it possible it is proportionately WORSE for you and your drivers. I know it is in the American tradition to believe that there is an infinite amount of goodies to be had by all but a more sober reading will show us that things have limits. One man's gain is another man's loss. For every stock market billionaire you have armies of working poor people. Every extravagant "freedom" that people claim means less freedom for somebody else. (The belief in infinite amounts of freedom is at the bottom of so many of the no-win situations that business people find themselves in. Fire a sexual harasser and you have wrongful dismissal lawsuit (his freedom) Don't fire him and you have a sexual harassment lawsuit (her freedom)) This is a roundabout way of saying there is a basic conflict between what a customer wants and what a company can provide and still stay in business. Wouldn't a FREE move be very clearly a superior product for the customer. Does that mean that what is superior for the customer is still our main goal. Not!!! You have an unexamined assumption here which is leading you into some strange conclusions.

- Patrick Griffin
Gentle Giant

Brian Small replied:
Perhaps the problem is regional or geographic in nature. As Patrick has said much more eloquently than I, selling a BLD estimate is a mind set. There is not one of you out there that would argue that the BLD estimate is not the best of both worlds for your company, your drivers, and you. If you truly believe that, I don't see it as a hard sell. If you don't, you will never convince your shipper. Most people are basically honest. Explaining to them that a BLD will only charge them for what they actually move, giving them an accurate estimate, and then explaining that anything they get rid of will reduce the cost is not a hard thing to do. Remember to tell them that the crap they bring over from grandma's house will add to the cost, and make damn sure your salespeople have a complete cube sheet. Our people have the shipper sign the cube sheet after going over it room by room to make sure they haven't forgotten anything. Takes a little time but it works for us.

- Brian Small


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