Removal companies: preparing surveys, household goods and dates in chat

Anyone planning a move often writes to the removal company in the evening from the sofa, between two flat viewings or at the weekend, when nobody in the office can pick up the phone. The first message is usually short: “What does a move from Cologne to Bonn cost, three rooms?” There is little to calculate from that. Without the floor, lift, carrying route, volume and preferred date, all the firm can do is ask back, and it often takes days until the answer arrives. This article shows which details a chat assistant can record in the conversation, how photos of the household goods get attached to the enquiry, how a wish for a survey becomes an appointment request and where the limits are: no price, no volume estimate and no statement on liability from the chat.

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Labels in the illustration

• Detail
• Costing
• Survey
• Dispatch
• Origin and destination
• Floor and lift
• Carrying route, access
• Room list or volume
• Photos of the goods
• Preferred date, window
• No-stopping zone
• needed
• helps
• not needed
• Columns: use within the firm
• Enquiry to dispatch
• Plain-text summary
• Visitor confirms
• Inbox with history
• Photos attached
• if uploads are enabled
• only after confirmation

Removal enquiry in chat: which detail serves what

Why removal enquiries arrive incomplete

For most people a move is not an everyday event, and many do not know at first contact what a removal company needs for a quote. They name the start and the destination and perhaps the number of rooms. What the firm is then missing are the details that determine the effort: which floor is the flat on, is there a lift, how far is it from the front door to the vehicle, how many household goods are there really, and should the firm also pack, dismantle furniture or fit the kitchen? A contact form can ask for these fields, but a form with many mandatory fields puts people off before their actual question has been answered. An assistant reverses the order: it first answers what the visitor wants to know and then asks in the conversation for what the enquiry still lacks.

This article deals with moving as a service for private households and smaller offices. How an assistant answers shipment questions in commercial freight is described in the article on AI chat for freight and logistics. And anyone who is moving themselves and has to report a meter reading to their utility will find that in the article on instalments and meter readings in a utility’s chat.

What a removal contract covers

In German law, the removal contract is a special form of the contract of carriage in the Commercial Code. If a contract of carriage concerns the transport of household goods, Section 451 HGB applies the general rules of carriage law, unless the special provisions for removals or international conventions provide otherwise. What the removal company’s obligations include is set out in Section 451a HGB, and for consumers the scope there goes further than for businesses:

For the chat, this results in a division of labour. The assistant explains which services the firm offers and asks which of them the customer wants: dismantling and reassembling furniture, packing and labelling boxes, taking the kitchen apart, removing lamps. It answers this from the firm’s description of services, not from the statute. What is owed under the specific contract and what it costs is stated in the quote. Whether someone counts as a consumer in an individual case, or which obligation applies in a dispute, is a question for professional advice and not for the chat.

The details that make an enquiry possible to cost

With XICBOT, the lead assistant captures contact details and the request in the flow of the conversation, not through a form placed in front of it. Which contact details are mandatory is set by the firm for each action. If one of them is missing, the enquiry is not created; the assistant asks for it instead. The assistant asks about floor, lift and carrying route according to the firm’s instructions and summarises them in the request; as separate mandatory fields they can be handled through pre-filling an existing enquiry form. The follow-up questions clarify need, scope and time frame and can be tailored to the firm’s own business.

• From where to where: the town or postcode of both addresses is enough for a first assessment; the full address follows once a quote or a survey is due.
• Floor, lift, carrying route: separately for both addresses, because a lift at the old home is of no help at the new one.
• Volume as a room list: rooms with the large items, plus cellar, loft, balcony and garage, which are easily forgotten in an estimate.
• Special items: piano, safe, aquarium, mirrors and glass, appliances with a water or gas connection.
• Services: packing, dismantling and reassembling furniture, kitchen, lamps, disposal, storage, in each case only from what the firm offers.
• Time frame: preferred day, possible period and whether moving out and moving in take place on the same day.

One limit belongs in this section: the assistant should not work out a volume from the room list or state a number of cubic metres that the customer might take as a commitment. It can explain an inventory list that the firm publishes as an aid; the estimate itself belongs in the quote. How enquiries can be qualified in chat in general, without interrogating the visitor, is described in the article on qualifying leads via chat.

Attaching photos of the household goods to the enquiry

A photo of the living-room cabinet often tells the dispatcher more than three sentences. With XICBOT, visitors can upload images and PDF files in the chat if the firm has enabled this for its assistant; uploads are switched off by default. The files are first attached to the conversation. If an enquiry results from it, the assistant attaches the previously uploaded files to the enquiry, and they go with it to the firm’s inbox. On receipt, the server checks from the content whether a file really is an image or a PDF, and it does not deliver it in executable form. A separate retention period can be set for visitors’ attachments; none is set by default, so this is a step during setup.

• Large furniture: wall unit, wardrobe, sofa and bed, each photographed so that the size is recognisable.
• Side rooms: cellar, loft and garage, which are often described too briefly in a room list.
• Access: stairwell, entrance, courtyard or driveway, if the route is narrow or long.
• Special items: piano, safe, aquarium or a glass display cabinet.
• Floor plan: as a PDF or image, if the customer has one.

The survey as an appointment request

For larger moves, many firms want to see the household goods before they submit a binding quote, on site or by video. This survey can be set up as an appointment type: with duration, lead time, buffers before and after and the time windows in which the firm carries out surveys. If it takes place at the customer’s home, a travel-time buffer is added so that two surveys in different parts of town do not follow each other immediately. On request, the booking assistant names available times, calculated from these settings minus the appointments already requested or confirmed in XICBOT, and records the chosen time as an appointment request as soon as the visitor has approved the summary.

Not every move needs a survey. For a small flat with a room list and photos, a firm can often calculate without a visit. When it carries out surveys and when it does not should therefore be stated in the knowledge base, so that the assistant only offers a survey where one is intended. How other industries let customers request measuring and consultation appointments in chat is shown in the article on kitchen studios and furniture stores.

Moving date and no-stopping zone

The moving day itself is not an appointment that the assistant allocates from available times. Whether a crew and a suitable vehicle are free on a given day depends on the volume, and the firm only knows that after costing the job. The assistant therefore records the preferred date as part of the enquiry, together with a period in which the move would also be possible, and adds that the firm confirms the day with the quote. A sentence such as “Saturday is still free” does not belong in the chat.

• Preferred day and whether it is fixed, for example because of a flat handover.
• Alternative period in which the move would also work.
• Interim storage, if moving out and moving in are not on the same day.
• No-stopping zone wanted at the old or new address, or not needed.

Customers often ask whether the firm takes care of a no-stopping zone in front of the building. Under Section 45(3) StVO (German Road Traffic Regulations), it is the road traffic authorities that determine where which traffic signs are put up. How a no-stopping zone is applied for, and how far in advance, is something the competent authority can say; the procedures differ from place to place. The assistant therefore repeats what the firm has published on this, for example whether it handles the application and which details it needs for it, and does not state deadlines or fees from general knowledge.

Confirm first, then hand over

Once the details are complete, the assistant presents them in plain text in the chat window. The visitor confirms or declines. Without confirmation it remains a proposal, and a proposal writes nothing. After confirmation, the enquiry is in the firm’s inbox, with the conversation history as context and the previously uploaded photos attached to the case. If the firm already has an enquiry form on its website, the assistant can pre-fill it after confirmation; it is only submitted if the firm allows this and the visitor agrees, otherwise the visitor submits it themselves. The assistant does not fill in file fields of a form.

• Contact: name, email address and, if the customer gives one, a phone number.
• Addresses and access: origin and destination, floor, lift, carrying route.
• Volume and services: room list, special items, services wanted.
• Date: preferred day, alternative period, no-stopping zone yes or no.

In data protection terms, such an enquiry is usually a pre-contractual measure: under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, processing is lawful if it is necessary in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract. That covers what is needed for a quote, and no more. Whether the assistant should additionally obtain consent, and what the notices for it look like, is described in the article on contact details in chat. The assessment for your own firm belongs with your data protection officer.

What the assistant does not promise

“Roughly what will it cost?” is the question with which many removal conversations begin. A total from the chat would be a figure without any checking, because the price depends on distance, volume, access, services and date. With XICBOT, the assistant answers from the stored sections of the knowledge base. If the firm has published hourly rates or flat rates, it can repeat them and add that the binding quote comes from the firm; if the documents say nothing about it, it does not name a price. What generally needs to be observed when stating prices to consumers is described in the article on prices in chat.

What belongs in a removal firm’s knowledge base

An assistant is as reliable as the documents it answers from. What is not in the knowledge base it usually does not answer; instead it says that it cannot find anything on the subject and offers the enquiry or a callback. Questions the assistant had to answer without a source reference appear, from the Pro package onwards, in the gap list of the conversation analytics. For a removal firm it is worth reviewing this list regularly during the first weeks, because it contains questions customers have before they send an enquiry and that the documents do not yet cover.

• Overview of services: private moves, office moves, packing service, furniture and kitchen assembly, disposal, storage, each with what it includes.
• Service area: towns and regions, long-distance moves and whether the firm travels abroad.
• Process: from the enquiry via the survey to the quote, with a note on when the firm carries out surveys.
• Inventory list and packing material: a template to fill in, boxes, wardrobe boxes, collection of empty boxes.
• No-stopping zone: whether the firm handles the application and what it needs from the customer for it.
• What is not transported: dangerous goods, valuables, plants or animals, as the firm has decided.

In a removal firm, an assistant replaces neither the survey nor the quote. What it can do is make sure that enquiries arrive in the evening and at the weekend too with the details needed for costing, that photos are attached to the case and that surveys come in as a request with a time slot rather than as a request for a callback. If you would like to see how this looks with your own overview of services, get in touch with us.

Frequent questions