Is it better to contact the local agent of a national van line, or the van line itself? (relocation, packing)

[Art662022]

Hello! I've learned a lot browsing this forum.

One question I can't figure out is whether there is any difference between first contacting the local agent for a national van line like United, versus first calling United.

We are moving over 2,000 miles, from one very small city to another very small city.

There appears to only be one local affiliate (agent) of United in our departure city. Fortunately that moving company has a good reputation for honest and careful packing/loading.

I don't know what will happen at the destination. Maybe Suddath Relocation Services will handle it, since it looks like there isn't a local United agent at the destination.

Anyway, I'd like to encourage the most care/commitment possible from the local agent in our departure city. I thought maybe contacting them directly would increase their commission, or something like that?

But we also do not want to miss out on any services that might have been handled better if we had made initial contact with the national van line instead of the local agent. Maybe initial contact with the national van line results in better coordination at both ends?

One thing I know for sure is that we only want to work with the main (only?) local United agent at our departure location, because they have a good reputation for taking care of peoples' stuff. Could I jeopardize that preference for working with them, if I call United directly? (Could United require me to work with a different local agent?)

Thanks for any advice!

[Parnassia]

I'd start with the local agent, explain your move, and ask them how their long distance moves work. Doubt very much that the same local packing/loading crew handles such long distance moves from beginning to end. At some point in the process their national network probably takes over. Kind of why their national network exists. Logistics are probably also affected by whether your load fills an entire trailer or is part of a shared load. Most likely, shared loads need to be reorganized/rebalanced on the truck along the way.

IME for my few transcontinental moves, the crew that packed and loaded my goods onto a branded truck were not the same people who unloaded/unpacked them on the other end.

[silibran]

Parnassia is right. We used a local United van Lines mover who moved us out and stored our stuff, but Mayflower delivered our stuff. I think the movers at destination are contract movers who work for all the companies. But I could be wrong about that.

Ask your local mover a million questions. Understand as much as possible before commencing the move.

[Art662022]

Thanks to both of you. This is very consistent with what I've understood and great review. That's exactly what we're expecting.

I'm just also wondering whether anybody knows, perhaps somebody in the industry, whether it makes any difference which "point of entry" you use. (By point of entry I mean whether you initiate the process directly with local agent, or initiate with the federal van line they work for. )

There can be differences that are invisible to the end user, but worth knowing about. For example is there any difference in terms of

...the commission made by the local agent company at your point of departure?
...who your contact person is throughout the move?
...the likelihood that your stuff winds up on a relatively small truck all by itself, driven the whole way by the local company (highly desirable).
... who handles all of the legal paperwork?
... how things are handled (or who handles them) if things go poorly with the local agent?
... how much information we might be given about who the unpacking will be subcontracted to at the other end?
... the range or type of contract options you're offered?

Those are just possibilities off the top of my head. It seems like maybe something only an industry insider might know.

One possibility is that calling United just causes them to redirect me to the local agent for X service, and calling the local agent just causes them to offer us X service. So in that case these are identical processes, with no meaningful differences for either the local company or our family.

But the other possibility is that something meaningful is different, depending on the point of entry we choose, like those examples.

Thanks!

[silibran]

Call the local agent.

[Parnassia]

IMHO you're overthinking this OP. You could experiment and try initiating with the company at the national level as well as the local agent and compare notes. Not sure its worth the effort. A company that operates on a national level probably figured out a long time ago how to keep their business most efficient and profitable. The local agents are just a cog in that wheel, but they are probably best at sourcing local labor and understanding local logistics. The national level has learned just how much they do or do not need to dictate.

[Art662022]

Parnassia, I believe you and Silibran are correct.

I did contact the agent directly. The agent immediately shared our contact info with United. United then reached out via an automated email to offer us access to their website resources, their national phone numbers, etc.

All of this happened within one hour of my local call.

So it seems like it would have been six one way and a half-dozen the other, as you expected.

Thank you.