Selecting a moving company
When picking an international mover, the first decision that must be made is if the moving company is going to pack everything for you, or if you are going to pack everything up yourself. Since we had moved only just over a year ago, and packing was one of the most stressful things that we did in a long time, we decided that (if the price was acceptable) we would be using a full-service mover this time. It is definitely more expensive to go this route, but the movers also take care of all the paper work that is required for customs (bills of lading, several forms, etc). We decided that the additional convenience would be worth the money.
So; how did we go about finding a mover? After Googling around for a bit, we found a site called www.internationaalverhuisadvies.nl.
The site is not much more than a mediator; they forward some details
with respect to the planned move to a number of movers. Our request was
forwarded to four companies: Kuiper Verhuizingen, Euromovers Dijkshoorn, Voerman UTS, and Crown Relocations.
The last one (Crown) disqualified itself: they never got back to us. Voerman UTS and Euromovers contacted us professionally within two days and Kuiper followed suit a day after that. After asking for rough estimates (based on 15m³ of volume), Voerman UTS and Euromovers made it to our shortlist. Both companies were asked to send an inspector to our home to assess the volume and the amount of work that was involved.
The first to be at the house was Voerman UTS. Their "relocation consultant" was perfectly on time, knew what he was talking about, and he was able to anticipate all of our question. He left a very professional, and well-organized impression behind. The inspector from Euromovers was late, did not have an answer to most of our question, and clearly indicated that they were not doing many relocations to the United States.
After we received the quotes of both companies, Voerman UTS was cheaper (by far) than Euromovers, so that settled the problem. We booked the move with Voerman UTS and they immediately confirmed in writing, and they included a copy of all the necessary forms, including a detailed set of instructions how to fill out most of them.
At this point, we are confident that UTS will live up to our expectations. More to follow when they have been here.