Its no secret, right now times are TOUGH. The economy is struggling, businesses are failing and layoffs are becoming common place. In addition, the housing market (the source of all this stress) is abysmal. People are having an extremely hard time selling their homes and when they finally move, it seems to be at a large financial loss. As a moving company, we see the cold hard reality every day.

In times like these, people start looking for ways to save and Humboldt (an Agent for United Van Lines) is here to answer the call. Through United, Humboldt is now offering large reimbursements of moving expenses via the City Point Program.

WHAT IS CITY POINTE? City Pointe is a program exclusive to United agents, where customer’s can get reimbursed for moving expenses by simply buying and/or selling a home with a City Pointe qualified realtor and using Humboldt to move.

WHERE DOES THE REIMBRUSEMENT MONEY COME FROM? The money is paid out directly from United, but it comes out of the realtor’s commission. When a realtor enters into the City Pointe program, they agree to kick back a percentage of their commission to United for the leads they will be receiving. United takes this money and passes it directly back to you within 60 days of the closing.

HOW MUCH MONEY WILL I BE REIMBURSED? That is all based on how much you sell or buy your home(s) for. If you sold a home for $375,000 you would receive $1,875 back. And since you can use the program for buying and selling, you could double that if you also bought a home with a qualified realtor.

WHAT’S THE CATCH? This is a common question with this program and the answer is “There is no catch!” The realtors are obligated to pay United for the referrals that sell or buy with them and Humboldt/United is passing that money directly back to you. In fact, there was a gentleman in California who used this program to sell and buy the homes involved in his move. When all was said and done, his reimbursement was actually greater than the cost of his move. He literally was paid to move with United Van Lines!

If you would like more information on this program or if you would like to enroll, please feel free to contact me at dkomm@humboldt.com.

On behalf of everyone over here at Humboldt Storage and Moving,  I would just like to wish you all a very happy holidays and a STRESS-FREE new year!

           Managing a full time job and attending a graduate program simultaneously can be a daunting task.  This is the endeavor that I have embarked upon.  It is important to me that I give both facets of my life 100% and do not miss a beat.        

            Over the past week my group and I have been working diligently to complete a project that consisted of a paper and presentation.  Finding time to meet with five people became a stressful task as we all have other obligations that we had to attend to.  However, we knew it was important for the success of the group to make this happen.  When members of the group become stressed I kept uttering the line” Relax……….and get moving” which is the tag line of Humboldt.  One gentleman told me that he had heard it enough, but on the other hand stated that when he hears the word relax he always thinks of get moving.    We finally were able to complete our project last night, and not a minute to soon, as the five members had seen each other for four nights straight the stress levels could have caused tension.  However, the group handled all facets of the project well and was able to complete in a cordial manner.

            The time was 5:30pm on Thursday December the 18^th.  The time had finally come and the room seemed to steam up from stress and anxiety of the project.  Over the next 25-30 minutes five individuals spoke about facts and statistics awing the crowd with our project.  The clock hit 6pm, and the dreaded question and answer from the professor.  The tension was mounting as we wanted to have quality answers for all of her questions.  Then the clock struck 6:10pm, and I was walked by to my seat it felt like the Grand Piano I was carrying up three flights of stairs in the South End had been lifted off my back.  (Or so the crews tell me those are heavy)  A sense of accomplish meant replaced the stress that we had all associated with the project for the passed few weeks and especially the past four days.  For the next 3 hours we sat and watched the stress melt off group by group as they completed there presentations.  As we walked out of the class room at 10 past 9 the professor handed us our evaluation with our grade.  The group’s hard work finally paid off and as we looked at our group the jubilation arose.  The stress that we endured over time was finally validated (take a guess at the grade) and Humboldt Storage and Moving is the stress reducing moving company, this grade was the stress reducing component of this course.  As we go into the Holiday season I can not sit back and “relax, and get shopping.”

So I was informed that United Van Lines was recognizing a Humboldt moving crew with being the best crew of the month. This award is difficult to get as there are thousands of drivers in our system. The criteria for the award are customer service scores and the safety on the roads. At Humboldt we are proud to say we work with Mike Mckenney and Jay Wilson and that they serve our moving customers. Mike and Jay are no strangers to being recognized for great service and customers typically use words like- efficient, professional, polite, made things easy and were friendly. This team has provided this type of service for Humboldt and its customers for many years. Mike and Jay have a current customer service score of 10.0 for the year and a perfect safety record. These guys get our branding of reducing the stress of the moving process for our customers. Just today they were moving the parents of a friend of mine. Tonight I called my friend and he said that his parents were amazed how great and efficient Mike and Jay were today.
Humboldt is lucky to have people like Mike and Jay that take care of our moving company each day.
Thanks- Mike and Jay for reducing the stress in each and every move!

One of the worst parts about moving is that the norms in your life are interrupted. I recently moved and I have now been 14 days without cable. 14 days with out all that quality programing; no Lost, no football, no 24, no Dog Whisperer (a guilt pleasure of mine!). I don’t think most people realize how important nightly rituals are in keeping a relaxed mindset until they are gone.

Going through this recent experience has helped me to realize how valuable Humboldt’s free Utility Connection Service is. With this service, anyone can log in and shop for all the utilities they will need in their new residence (TV, internet, phone, gas, electric and the list goes on). When you enter in your new zip code, it even lists all the different options you have at your new residence. The best part is that most of the companies also offer a “Best Price Guarantee”, which is key. Many of these companies like giving different pricing depending on how you sign up for their service (by phone or internet), but other guarantee takes all the work out of finding the best price. Added services like Utility Connection are really the kinds of programs that make Humboldt stand out from your typical Boston Moving company. We really do put forth the effort to try and reduce the stress of moving and all that goes along with it.

Update: Since this posting, I have gotten myself connected to the civilized world again, using the Utility Connection service on www.humboldt.com. The tube is on and the stress is gone. I will leave you with one last message: Discipline, Exercise, and Affection… In that order!

Gotta Love Photoshop!

Just recently we packed up the family for a vacation and a business trip for me.  The family consists of my wife (Illona) and three children (Hannah 6, Braydon 4, and Declan 2).  We left Boston on Nov. 1st to head to San Diego and then off to Palm Springs for the moving company convention before we would return to Boston eight days later.  For any of you who have not had the luxury of travelling with three little ones on a plane it is always an adventure.  I am sure many of you have had to sit through a screaming child on a long plane ride.  If not, your time will come soon. 

Well picture this on our return flight we left Palm Springs at about 5pm e.s.t. and arrived smoothly in Denver.  In Denver that is where our luck changed after boarding the flight and being told we would be pushing back in a few minutes the plane did not move.  Shortly there after the announcement came that the door which we had boarded through seemed to have a plastic piece that was malfunctioning.  The door was not showing as shut and we could not leave.  The pilot quickly told us the mechanic was on the way and to sit tight.  Well 15 minutes grew into an hour.  The kids were getting restless and our family stress level (okay mine) was rising with each minute.  How would the kids stay in their seats?  What time would this flight actually arrive in Boston?  Would we even leave? 

That is when my two year old Declan decided he had enough.  He was no longer sitting and he would proceed to check the entire plane out from front to back.  In his travels he met a new friend one of the stewardess on the plane.  She did an absolutely amazing job with him for the next few hours.  Declan assisted her in making coffee and followed her through the aisle as she delivered the coffee.  He would then help with clean up going up and down the plane yelling “trash?” to assist his new firend in her duties.  By this time my other two children Hannah and Braydon had also joined the clean up team.  I sat in my seat and relaxed for a bit.  I could not help but think about my line of business being a Boston moving company that we have this kind of opportunity to help a family deal with stress and anxiety with each move we perform. 

After the clean up chore was over what else could Declan and his siblings do to help? No worries.  The stewardess decided to take the kids all three of them to the cockpit to meet the pilot.  Shortly thereafter my wife was taking pictures of the three kids flying the plane and talking with the pilots.  You would have thought we were back at the San Diego Zoo or Disneyland with all the smiles and laughter. I have included a picture of Braydon at the helm of this 757 aircraft so you can view the fun.  It was time to leave the cockpit and return to our seats as this piece of plastic which caused the delay was located by the mechanics and would be fixed in 15 minutes.  I am happy to say our flight left shortly after and we arrived in Boston for sunrise.  The kids all slept the entire way and I watched  Declan’s new friend smile and be happy the entire flight.  Declan woke up as we were coming off the plane and mustered enough energy to say good bye to his flying buddy. 

Since we landed all I have talked about was the kindess and compassion that was shown to my children and our family.  Talking about reducing the stress! I have never been so pleased to spend 12 hours on a plane ride. We could all learn a lesson from the crew of United Air Lines Flight 1126.  Great job and thanks for making the skies so friendly!

Jim

Everyone knows how stressful moving is. You have to worry about so many details: closing on 2 properties, dealing with a mortgage, finding a dependable moving company and the list goes on. At Humboldt, we have found that the most important things in life are sometimes never really thought about during the move, THE KIDS!

The idea of moving to a new place with new people and having to leave everything you know behind can really create a lot of anxiety for kids. With this in mind, Humboldt has brought the Discover America program to local schools for the last 2 years. Discover America is an interactive lesson, created by United Van Lines, that teaches kids about geography, arithmatic, reading and writing by having “Driver Dave” give the children a quick lesson about his job. On top of the educational value, the program teaches kids that moving can be an exciting expereince and can create new opportunities. 

We are heading into unchartered territory in launching this blog.  Not long ago, blogging was not even a thought in our communications strategy.  Today we realize this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly and hear back from them.

Humboldt was founded in 1905 and began operations as a ice delivery company.  The company quickly transformed itself into assisting families relocating.  Over one hundred years later we decided to rebrand our company.  Not only are we helping families during the relocation process, our commitment is to reduce the stress before, during and after the move.

Our future blogs will be focused around stress and moving.  We will share stories of great service by our Associates and the opportunities we have to be a better moving and storage company by learning from our customers.  We look forward to communicating with our customers and the internet gives us this whole new way of doing that on a global scale.

So share with us what you think, and together we will keep Humboldt on the move!

Relax. And get moving.

Jim