Moving can be a pain in the ass, especially when you have to do the job yourself. The myriad boxes, unwieldy dollies and delicate china sets will make you want to submerge yourself in a pool of packing peanuts, never to surface again. But depending on which do-it-yourself moving company you call, you may have another problem to add to the list—your truck blowing up.
I worked as a sales and reservations agent at the U-Haul call center in Phoenix, Ariz. And I have this advice to new customers: worry less about getting a truck with a cute polar bear on the side and more about getting one with a puncture-free gas line.
Take the story one frazzled woman recounted to me. Her husband had driven a U-Haul truck several miles before realizing that it was leaking gasoline all over the road. Upon inspection he found that the gas line had been cut. He called up the local U-Haul store and told them how he had nearly met a fiery end. And what was their response? “Can you drive it back?”
Nearly every day for the past two summers, on the tenth floor of the South Tower of the company headquarters, I answered phone calls from customers interested in either renting from U-Haul or telling us why they would never use U-Haul again. After hearing the horror stories from past U-Haul customers, it became apparent why the nickname “U-Hell” had become so ingrained in the public’s consciousness that the company purchased the domain “www.uhell.com” as a precautionary measure.
A lack of common sense and unconcern for the customers’ well-being characterizes the service of the majority of U-Haul employees. Many of the company’s workers legitimately care about treating the customer well, but all too often I saw cases of negligence ranging from the unsanitary (a truck infested with cockroaches) to the extremely dangerous (trucks with no brakes). Such inadequacy in customer service is a problem that any rapidly expanding company must face. Anyone who’s dealt with a Blockbuster employee who doesn’t know Gone with the Wind from Gone in 60 Seconds understands that a larger labor force means more diluted service.
I did as much as I could to help the customers who phoned in, even though it wasn’t in my best financial interest to do so. Half of my paycheck was derived from the “bonuses” I received for every reservation I made; spending 15 or 20 minutes helping a lost customer find a drop-off location cost me precious time that I could have been using to make reservations—and receive bonuses. The most money-hungry sales agents (and the “best” according to the sticker-adorned ranking chart on the wall) would often transfer customers to a different department before bothering to even listen to their problem. These agents were generously rewarded while employees like myself lost money for trying to help customers.
U-Haul’s overarching lack of concern for the customer, reinforced by policies such as the bonus system, has earned it the worst report in the business, even though it provides the most user-friendly moving equipment on the market and offers more locations than any of its DIY competitors. In fact, the company’s numerous locations are perhaps the reason why U-Haul is able to continually exploit customers despite its reputation. On its peak business days, the company rents out as many trucks as it can, leaving numerous customers who had booked “confirmed” reservations without a truck or a prayer. A company with a little more concern for its customers would keep several extra trucks on hand in every city in case some of the trucks waited on by other customers are not returned on time.
But U-Haul isn’t interested in providing its customers with the best service possible. Keeping extra trucks on hand would hurt profits; training agents more extensively in the skill of customer service would cost time and money; hiring proficient mechanics rather than telling an 18-year-old (such as my high school friend) to memorize a 600-page auto manual would likewise drain profits. Like nearly all companies, U-Haul aims to maximize its profits, but it does so by draining every penny from its customers instead of providing service that will keep them coming back.
A handful of Georgetown students—especially those living in apartments—will doubtless require the services of a DIY moving company at the end of the semester. If you happen to be one of these people, consider typing “U-Haul horror stories” into Google before you make your choice. You’ll come up with countless anti-U-Haul web sites; typing in “Penske horror stories” or “Ryder horror stories” just gives you more U-Haul stories. Picking U-Haul would be a bad move. Just ask C.A.U.N.—Customer’s Against U-Haul’s Negligence—or one fed-up customer, who, in his own Internet-only horror story, expressed the sentiment felt by many past customers of U-Haul: “Good Riddance U-Haul! U-Suck!”
