What Is White Glove Delivery Services? (Explained)
While professional movers provide a valuable service and exercise care in packing, moving, and unpacking your belongings, many of us own things that need extra care. You can pack up your collection of Agatha Christie paperbacks with little worry, but anything especially fragile or sentimentally dear to you warrants extra care.
A white glove delivery service offers that extra care, allowing you to concentrate on other aspects of a move without worrying about specific items getting damaged or destroyed.
However carefully a general moving service works, sometimes that’s just not enough.
Why White Gloves?
The term “white glove” probably refers to the tendency of aristocrats to insist on servants wearing white gloves when handling silver dinnerware to discourage any tarnishing from skin oils.
The gloves worked to protect valuables as they were used in daily service, and the same idea applies to white glove delivery services.
While the glove color doesn’t impact the level of care, most professional movers working with white glove delivery services today wear actual white gloves. If they wear another color, that doesn’t mean they’re a lower-quality service.
4 White Glove Delivery Process:
When you engage a white glove delivery service, knowing how the process works can help set your mind at ease as your valuables are shipped or delivered safely.
1. Initial Inspection
Just as you give a rental car the once-over before you drive it away, the movers will inspect your items before the packing begins. This inspection will show you and the delivery personnel the condition of the items before they’re packed.
If the inspection shows any damage, that will get logged so there will be no misunderstandings once the item arrives at its destination.
2. Professional Packaging
One of the main reasons you engage a white glove delivery service is the packing they will provide. If you hire someone to move your original Monet painting, you’ll want them to do more than wrap a towel around it and put it in the boot. You could do that yourself. [1]
White glove delivery services provide specialty packing. For that Monet, they might use a crate specifically designed for storing and transporting paintings.
Other valuable items, including oddly shaped ones, get their own specialty packaging to ensure their safety. If a white glove delivery service needs to build a storage container to get the job done right, that’s what they’ll do.
3. Cautious Handling
The other reason you hire a white glove delivery service is that you want someone who will do more than pitch your box of stuff into the back of a truck and hope for the best.
A carefully packed item needs proper handling, and service of this kind ensures professionals who will treat your fragile items with great care.
If you are looking to hire a professional man and van to move your fragile items. Check these links below:
4. Customer Care
Your white glove delivery service will be staffed by professionals, so you can relax and spend less time worrying about the status of your valuables. You can have peace of mind if you’ve engaged in this service.
If you’re one of those people who will worry nonetheless, the company will be more than happy to answer your questions as you call to check up on your things. However, since you already hired a white glove delivery service, you don’t need to worry about those things, as they’ll arrive intact.
After all, they were inspected, packed by trained individuals, and handled with care.
Reassembly as Needed
Once your Monet arrives at its new home, you can hang it on the wall. But if you transported something a little more complex, like an airplane or an intricate piece of ornate, antique furniture, it more than unlikely needed some disassembly before getting packed for shipping. [2]
The service you hired won’t drop off a box and bid you good luck. Instead, their professional assembly of the items they moved for you completes the transaction.
They can also remove any items at the new location that the piece you’re shipping might be there to replace.
Cost of White Glove Delivery Service
It’s difficult to list a definite cost since it can vary widely depending on the size and number of items being moved, but expect to pay at least $100 more than you would for a standard moving job.
We all know that you get what you pay for, so this extra cost shouldn’t be a surprise. Extra care means extra time, which increases labor costs, and specialty packaging incurs costs, as well.
Few of us, however, would balk at paying a little extra to ensure that our prized possessions make a safe journey from one location to another.
See related post: How Much Is A Man With a Van?
Who Needs a White Glove Delivery Service?
If you’re transporting large, valuable items, the chances are good that this type of service is for you. If you own a first-edition copy of “Moby Dick,” it’s a valuable piece of literature, but it may not be the most fragile thing you own. You might be able to wrap and transport it yourself. Other items, though, may prove impractical or unwise for you to move by yourself.
- A gallery owner needing to ship valuable paintings and sculptures must rely on sturdy, protective packaging and careful handling of those packages.
- Interior design professionals dealing in valuable pieces of furniture—antique or not—also can benefit from a service built for the safe transportation of delicate items.
- Anyone moving a so-called priceless item can benefit from the peace of mind inherent in this service. Even if the item in question is relatively worthless to an outsider, sentimental items are intensely valuable to the people who own and love them.
Final Thoughts
Moving can bring much stress, as can shipping valuables over a distance. Whether the items in question are large, bulky works of art, specialized vehicles, or collections, some of our possessions need extra care and handling when getting moved to a new location.
A white glove delivery service stands as the ideal solution to this conundrum, as it employs professionals trained in packing items so they’re best protected during transport, who handle and move the packages carefully, and who work to ensure the safe arrival and installation of the item at its new home.
If you need help with moving services, we, at Transport Executive will be happy to help. Call us at +(44) 2033 184 720 for a free quote!
References:
- https://www.dw.com/en/claude-monet-painting-sells-for-record-1107m-at-auction/a-48740167
- https://www.si.edu/mci/english/learn_more/taking_care/movefurn.html
