Lots of stress for nothing

Linda Lasater Submitted this review about Specialty Mobile Systems
Review made Live: 7/24/2006 6:10:00 PM
We allowed over three weeks for the company to find a broker to pick up our car. Unfortunately, we scheduled our pick up with a two week window ending on the day we had to leave the state. During the two week window, we regularly called customer service to inquire about an estimated pickup time. Customer service was not able to provide a concrete pickup time because the company could not find a broker.

With only 48 hours left in the pick-up window, customer service finally told us they would likely not find a driver for us. We had to quickly find another company that could pick up within 48 hours.


Company Response
Amy from Specialty Mobile Systems Submitted this response.
Response Date: 7/25/2006 1:19:00 PM
We work with an estimated pick up window of 1 – 10 days. There are a couple ways that we suggest customers to work with us on this process; some customers opt to put their vehicle ready date (the day customers are willing to release the vehicle) the day they are actually departing so they have access to the vehicle up until the last possible second and allow someone to release the vehicle in their behalf (a friend or coworker), some customers back date their vehicle ready date 10 days prior to their departure so chances are better that the vehicle is picked up prior to the departure and put a variable in the transport order that it can not be delivered to the destination until after they arrive (unless of course there is someone at the destination that can accept the vehicle in their behalf.) This customer referenced that we had her order for 3 weeks. We received her order on May 31st, however, her vehicle ready date was not until June 8th. We are not going to assign a vehicle if a carrier wants to pick up the vehicle too early, because of course we do not want to pick up the vehicle prior to the customer willing to release it. Also considering that if vehicles are picked up too early then they will arrive to the destination too early, which of course would also be an inconvenience to the customer and the driver. If after the 10 day window for pickup, we do not have a carrier assigned to a vehicle (we are a broker and a carrier in this instance acting as a broker for this customers vehicle) customers can add money to the COD, or we can continue to work on the transport move, or customer’s do have the opportunity to cancel the move and receive a refund of their deposit. In this customers case she cancelled her order on the 8th day of the 1 – 10 day window. We diligently worked to locate a carrier to transport this vehicle; however, due to the location of the origination of this vehicle it surpassed the original estimation. Due to the nature of the transport business in general, several challenges can present themselves. And there are times when a “concrete” answer is not possible. We welcome customers to contact us for status, but as soon as we have updated information we will call customers as quickly as possible. We strive to do all in our power for things to go as smoothly as possible considering many variables, and apologize for this move not happening and any inconveniences that affected this customer. Amy/Specialty Mobile