Berger/Allied Van Lines - St. Paul

Super well. They were careful and considerate of our home and the things being moved. The packers were amazing and efficient. Everything made it in one piece - nothing broke! Nothing was lost! They worked with me on timing and accommodated my schedule on both ends. The drivers texted me as he was driving through the country so i knew at all times where he was. I was so worried about this move and feel like I could not have been in better hands.

I wasn't just satisfied. My interaction with them was good. The work turned out fine.

I didn’t enjoy the process at all and I am still in negotiations with them. They have mishandled the move and I had to come up with some added cost that I didn’t anticipate. The actual physical packing was very professional and well then, but the administration of how the goods were moved was unprofessional.

We packed and unpacked ourselves but Dave Lorrier was VERY helpful all along the way and even showed us how to box up picture frames which are not easy to do. They picked up the whole house full of boxes on time and delivered on time. The driver was excellent and the loaders to the truck and then to the house were very customer oriented. One frame was broken and they took care of the paperwork perfectly.

They were outstanding. Everything went right according to plan. I was amazed how smoothly it went.

In April, 2013, I relocated from the Twin Cities to Nevada. I took quotes from 3 moving companies and decided on Berger/Allied due to it's "full service" approach. I am moving alone and do not have an extended social network in my new location, so an efficient and reliable moving company was very important to me. I opted to go with Berger/Allied over comparable national moving companies because, while their cost was higher than other options, they offered a much shorter delivery window: 10 days, to the competition's 2.5 weeks or more. My items were loaded on 4/8/2013, with a delivery window of 4/15/2013 - 4/18/2013. I drove my car to Nevada with a family member the weekend of 4/12/13, and arrived late 4/14/2013 to be available for the delivery should it be on the earlier side of the window. The family member intended to help me rearrange furniture, hook up electronics, etc. and booked a return flight the morning of 4/19/2013. Of course, as murphy's law would dictate, I was told my delivery would be around 3p 4/18/2013 -- the very last possible time it could be delivered within the time stated on the contract. My experience with Berger/Allied: The sales person was very nice, although a bit casual about returning phone calls. When I noticed the paperwork contained a different guaranteed price than the original quote they were quick to correct the issue. The packers were awesome, very fast and professional, I would definitely recommend them. I had been told by the move coordinator that the driver picking up my belongings would be the driver who delivered the items in NV. This was not the case, but the crew that did the loading were also very fast and professional. The driver who actually has my belongings has been in touch a few times, and has been very polite on the phone. Unfortunately, I've just been notified (today, 4/18, delivery day) by the driver that my delivery will not be made today as was confirmed yesterday. I'm not certain why this is the case, the call didn't have a very good connection, and the move coordinator didn't have an answer when I called with her beyond "well, we can't control the weather you know", with a snort. Yes, a snort. She did say she would check into it and get back to me. I understand the weather has been crazy all over the country this month. But I also understand that, as someone who does not routinely drive long-distance, if I can coordinate a cross-country move around bad weather patterns that have been occurring longer than Berger/Allied has had my belongings in their possession, I expect that a professional moving company can as well. They have had my belongings for 10 days now. I made the drive in 3 days, with no weather issues. I also do not know for certain that weather is the issue, as the reason for the delay has yet to be given. So I continue to sit on the floor in an empty home, waiting for a call to tell me where my belongings are, why they aren't here today, and when they will be here, and if they will be here in time for me to find my work clothes to wear to my new office Monday. Tomorrow morning I will drive my family member to the airport to return home, and will now have to incur the additional expense of hiring local movers to place my furniture once it has finally been delivered by Berger/Allied. Moral of the story: just go with the cheaper company. Berger/Allied is not worth the price, and they do not honor their commitments. You may as well save the money if you're going to have the same headaches.

They were very polite and thorough. The move went well and nothing was broken.

Berger - Allied Van Lines - St. Paul Somewhere in between the time it left our house, one of our pieces of exercise equipment which was on the inventory leaving the house was not on the inventory leaving the warehouse. The driver, when we arrived in Maine tried to pressure me into signing the inventory list that said we had everything. If I had signed that, we would not have had any legal recourse to get the treadmill replaced. When you move, the guys are coming in every door possible and checking things off is kind of impossible. When we realized the treadmill was missing we contacted the company. Because the stuff was in the warehouse, there was some going back and forth about whose responsibility it was. It took them a year to finally pay us back for the treadmill. The price was another issue. He tried to charge us for ferrying the stuff because he didn't think the driveway would hold the truck.

It was a phenomenal experience. They were very professional, very friendly and very efficient. They removed whatever they could remove, but there were some things that could not be removed, and they were very clear in letting them know what could and what could not be moved.

They were chosen by my new employer. My advice would be to ask folks to look around at other companies. Some of their employees seemed a little less than professional for the amount of cost. Granted, my employer was paying for it and it was not coming out of my pocket, but still for that kind of volume the employees seemed less than professional. Two items got damaged but the company itself reimbursed us for the damages; otherwise the movers were on time and I think for the most part did everything well. Sometimes some of their handling of things was a little in question. For example, they took the big charcoal grill off the back of our house but because it was raining I saw them carrying the big grill through our living room; I was afraid they would cause damage inside the house. I will not use this company again in the future.

It was fine. Nothing out of the ordinary.

We've used them a few times and we are going to use them again in a couple of weeks. It was a full service move and everything was moved well. It was great. Nothing was broken. The customer service was really good which is why we have used them over and over again.

Wow, I can't say enough good things about this company. We had 3 companies come out to bid (and got an on-line quote from MoveBuilder.com for $6,064). We were actually leaning towards a different company (Graebel) but their lack of attention to detail (seemed to be a pattern) and lack of responsiveness (we were immediately passed off to the moving coordinator once the moving consultant put together the bid, which was a big mistake) had us looking more closely at Berger/Allied. Our moving consultant (Bill Powers) kept in contact with us until the very end. He even came back out to the house to re-bid (while he was on vacation) because we had purged items and wanted the weight to drop below 8,000 lbs, so that we could select a lower amount of additional insurance. They provided all the additional boxes we needed (including 10+/- wardrobes) at no add'l cost. They were flexible on our load date and hung on to the furniture for a few days (they picked up on Monday, Oct. 10 and delivered on a Saturday, Oct. 15) until we had access to the house. Everyone we encountered at Berger was professional and friendly. Bill Powers was our consultant (can't say enough good things about him), Ann Alexander was our moving coordinator (again, excellent), and Elmer Hernandez was in charge of our load, transport, and unload (Elmer and his two colleagues were from Berger's Dallas location -- these guys had to work hard b/c of the location of our apartment). We had a mother/daughter team pack our breakables (Laurie?) -- they were both a delight and EFFICIENT. Boy, do they know how to pack and fast. A skill I wish I had. Everything arrived in one piece -- nothing broken, nothing missing. We thought the price was great for the service that we received. We would definitely use them again.

It would have taken me days to do what they did in five hours. What a service!!!

It went very smoothly. They have a lot of my stuff in storage still. The people who packed and moved our belongings were very friendly. I felt like they were careful with my belongings but will not know for sure until I get the rest of my things out of storage.

The representative who did our estimate called fifteen minutes after he was supposed to arrive to say he's "finishing up in Bloomington" and would be there shortly. Bloomington is about 5 minutes from us. He arrived 45 minutes later with no excuse smelling like McDonald's French fries. Once the estimate got underway, he "guessed" at the weight of our items and of the 15 cabinets and 8 closets in our apartment, he only opened one each (and then only at my urging him to be thorough and as accurate as possible). I mentioned we have a storage unit downstairs: "Unless you have anything real heavy it won't really matter" was his response. When I said, "we have a stained glass sculpture, tools, golf clubs..." he responded, "nah, nothing that'll make a big difference one way or the other." I can understand the need of sales people to project confidence and even do a little sweet-talking, but at least treat me like an intelligent person! He was late to the appointment, the quality of and manner in which the estimate was performed was unprofessional, and his guesstimate was a whopping $1,900 short of what the move actually cost us.

A terrible experience. The estimator got the volumes wrong resulting in not all the goods getting onto the truck and another seperate delivery at a later date was needed. The packers are contractors and are paid by the box, therefore they are not rewarded for efficiency but by quantity. Packing was bad. The driver was rude, and lazy. He treated the loaders with arrogance and was uncooperative. It all took a day longer than planned. There were damaged goods and claims have been submitted. The way the system works now is that they guarantee the price, but inflate it so that they will make more money by skipping the level of service and the commitments made verbally. Warning to future customers is to challenge every item in their estimate, they do not refund for overestimating things, like number of boxes used or volume used of truck etc. I have tried to negotiate on a reasonable basis for a reduction in the amount but they are not willing to do anything. Does not convey a customer friendly approach for a substantial amount of business. Their reputation is now damaged. I would not recommend Berger (part of the Allied group)

We asked Allied and Mohawk to bid the job. Allied's sales person was very casual and under estimated our weight by 25%. The Mohawk sales person was much more professional, and as it turns out, right on the numbers in estimating our weight. When I asked Allied why so low an estimate, he just said he could bump it up a bit and we'd be fine. What we wanted was a guarantee that the price was not going to exceed a quoted value which we finally got after I called the sales manager to complain about the casual attitude and shoddy business practives of the sales guy. Why did we persist with Allied? We had had a good experience with Allied five years ago and really liked our driver. When they said they could promise the driver for us again, we decided to go with Berger Allied despite our misgivings. The driver showed up right on time on the appointed day with a local crew of five guys. They were not the least pleasant to work with. The day was hot and everyone's tempers were short but these guys were swearing at each other and while they said they were "joking" there was no mistaking the submerged anger. We were stressed enough by having to leave our home of 20 years without listening to them. The driver also informed us as he loaded that he couldn't deliver the load on the promised date at the end of week because he had a family obligation and his truck needed work. To be fair, the contract gave him a four-day window and he chose the last day to complete the delivery but the sales office told us it would be the first day. We had to make other arrangements for several nights lodging and were not happy with not being informed earlier. The truck arrived on the date we finally agreed to. There was a new crew of four guys that the driver contracted with (none of them Allied employees). They were courteous, pleasant, worked very hard, and exceeded our expectations. We haven't unpacked yet but none of the furniture was damaged in the move and only a few boxes were squashed under a stack of heavier boxes. Some of that came from the fact that we used a lot of Home Depot boxes to pack our own things and the boxes are not very sturdy. Overall, I would only rate the experience a B. The Minnesota packing crew was fine (although they broke a lamp) but the loading crew was bad. The driver did a good job loading and unloading but there was the issue of not being informed about the change in delivery. The sales person was lazy and did a poor job in estimating the load. Had I to choose over again, I think I would go with United/Mohawk.

They were on time, professional and proficient. I can't speak highly enough of them.

The overall experience was good. Their estimate was higher than we ended up paying which I did not expect. We had very minimal damage and everything got and we didn’t lose anything. The packing crew was fantastic. I would use them again if need be.

They were great on the Minneapolis side loading and a little questionable on the Seattle side unloading. I feel like the physical demands were a bit gruff with the boss/employee relationship and there was an obvious disagreement going on but the physical abilities of the movers were strong and positive.

It went very well. They showed up when they were supposed to, used smart and creative methods. They finished earlier than the estimated time and lowered the charges.

Communication issues with our Berger agent: It was difficult to get timely responses from Burger. Summer is their high season, but I thought they could have done better, hence my C grade for responsiveness. They were fine once we were talking. Quality of work: I admit I've not made any claims against Burger, but I took extra insurance with a deductible, and my damage in dollars was minimal. What I am concerned about is their packing. Most was good, but they packed an LCD computer monitor FACE DOWN in a box along with a bunch of other heavy, solid items. The monitor did not break, but the lamp in the box did. There were other questionably-packed boxes. Rather than use the original boxes, the guys talked me into using two dish packs to hold my tall stereo speakers. I relented. Upon opening the boxes in Seattle I found they'd broken off the positive connection on the back of one speaker. Both the broken lamp and speaker connector were repairable at minimal cost, but they contribute to my concern about the packing crew's overall skill. Professionalism: John was great. The packers or loaders removed the music stand from our piano, but lost the screws. John simply gave me $10 to buy new ones. Problem solved (and the 4 screws cost less than a dollar). Overall, the experience was typical of moving 16,000 pounds cross country, most was good, some was not. I only wish the packers were a little more careful when packing delicate items. I've had far worse moving experiences; Burger was pretty good-a solid B. They might have been an A with better packing.

There were 3 movers that came to the house and treated my items like they were their own. They did use a lot of care and consideration when they moved the items into the truck.

THEY WERE TIMELY & PRICE WAS EXTREMELY REASONABLE. EVERYTHING WAS DONE PROFESSIONALLY. THEY REALLY DID A GREAT JOB.