The easy way to book a reliable London 'Man with a Van'

Who is the Man with a Van?

"But I booked a Man and Van I tell you!".. Yes maybe you did, but which one? With literally thousands of 'men with vans' all over London, and all using similar names, it can get a bit confusing at times if you're not careful..

A man and van Mover

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So we decided to write this post because every so often we get confused with other Movers simply because some people are unaware the term 'Man with a Van' is in fact generic, and it (or a close variation of it) is used by almost every moving company in London. We just happen to own the actual website name!

Because we have been around longer than most we managed to secure the perfect website address for our removals business way back in 2003. Over the years this has proved invaluable because for most potential customers it is rightly seen as a significant sign of credibility, authority and trust.

After all, if there are literally thousands of Man with a Van's all over London (and the rest of the UK for that matter) then the one removals company that owns 'ManwithaVan.co.uk' must be doing something right, even if we do say so ourselves!

Sometimes though it can lead to confusion. A small percentage of people don't actually realise that nearly all removers use the term 'Man with a Van' and many other combinations of it like 'Man with Van', 'Man and a Van' or even just 'Man Van' to describe their removals service.

This occasional befuddlement is understandable, particularly for those new to London or the UK as a whole. So we thought, rather than keep repeating ourselves over and over again, lets save time for everyone concerned and make it all nice and clear on a blog post we can point people to. Simples!

'I booked a Man and Van but no one has turned up!'

When we get contacted in this kind of situation it usually goes something like this..

Someone has hired a man and van service to move home and the driver has gone ghost on them and not arrived, so they understandably want to know where they are. After furiously Googling around they end up contacting us just based on our name and demand to know where their van is. Unfortunately though, they didn't book their move through us so there's little we can do to help.

Or perhaps they booked their removal van some time ago, and then mislaid the details of the actual man and a van company they booked with and after a quick random search they end up contacting us to confirm that everything is still on. Again, we can't help I'm afraid.

Sometimes they have simply been ringing around or sending enquiries through multiple sites and become totally confused over exactly which removal companies they have even contacted let alone which one they hired, easily done unless you are keeping a record as you go along.

Or maybe they have booked with one of the websites that uses a very large database of relatively unknown van drivers, all calling themselves by similar van man names and just assume they have something to do with us.

There are a multitude of other similar predicaments but you get the idea.

The one thing in common with these situations is usually the person contacting us is already in a somewhat distressed state, which unfortunately in spite of our best efforts can often get rapidly worse when we attempt to calmly explain their mistake.

We can normally tell almost straight away when someone has most likely confused us with another man in a van company, mainly because what they are telling us doesn't tally with the strict way our system is set up and the records we keep (in accordance with our privacy policy).

Doing it the right way

Many years ago we realised that providing informal van and man removals quotes to potential customers over the phone was very problematic and time consuming. The same questions required to calculate a quote over and over again, the lack of a written record of what has been said or agreed, the potential for errors and confusion over whether a booking had actually been confirmed or not, etc etc.

So we naturally evolved, like all businesses that survive must eventually do, into a more streamlined and efficient operation. We now run a very tight ship with regard to exactly how our man and van hire quotes are provided to users, which can only come via a quote request form on this website. An auto reply is immediately sent out detailing exactly which of our registered Movers will be quoting, along with their full name and contact details. The actual quotes are then provided to users directly by the specified Movers, all of whom have been with us a long time and we know very well. Simple but effective, and it works very well. So well in fact believe it or not we never get any complaints about it, which is just the way we like it!

So when someone contacts us and insists they spoke to someone to arrange their man and removal van hire, we know immediately there is a mistake. If they contact us to say their van hasn't turned up (which has never actually happened once with our Movers) we ask which specific Mover they booked with, because as explained it's impossible to make a booking through our site without the customer knowing this information. So again we quickly know it's an error if they cannot provide the correct name or any other corroborating details that tie in with the way we operate.

In addition we can also check our recent records if necessary to confirm if a quote request was even made by the person in question, because occasionally a potential customer may use our site to request a removals quote, but then go on to other sites and subsequently book their move elsewhere without keeping a note.

In the vast majority of cases as part of their moving house checklist people do keep details of which removal companies they deal with along with the estimated costs to move home, but understandably, from time to time, errors are made so don't feel too bad if maybe you do recognise yourself a bit here! Just a simple pause for reflection and acknowledgement of the mistake is usually enough for most people to 'move on'.

Happy moving!


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