PODS Moving & Storage

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It was very easy. It was a simple phone call to get it delivered, get it picked up and moved and then get it picked up for the final delivery. And they charged us as it went along, so it wasn't one huge chunk.

The container was delivered to my home in Long Island two days late. Our container included items that our son needed for his move into a new apartment in NYC. We had reserved a U-Haul and reserved time on the freight elevator at his apartment based on the scheduled delivery (nine days after the container had been picked up in Houston.) The container was two days late, leading to a number of materially negative ripple impacts. The customer service phone lines are completely inconvenient if you actually want to speak to a live person. While the automated aspects of the customer service phone lines work well, expect very long wait times (20-30 minutes) if you have any issue that requires speaking to a human. Because of my delayed delivery, I spent hours on the phone listening to a recording, probably saying how much PODS valued me. The customer service representatives are knowledgeable, helpful and aggressive. Once I finally spoke to someone on the phone about my situation, they were consistently knowledgeable. They were also aggressive sales oriented folks to a fault - think Glengarry Glen Ross. I had an issue with a disconnect between my emailed invoice, and what it appears I agreed to on the phone, and wound up in an endless dialogue where the customer service staff would not concede any fault at all. The delivery and pickup drivers were professional, courteous and on time based on their dispatches. While the cross country delivery was days late, the local drivers arrived for all four pickup/dropoffs on time and were professional and courteous. The device used to lift and lower the storage container keeps the material inside level. I packed my unit very carefully, and everything was delivered intact, with only small wear showing after 1,500 miles over the road.

For the most part, this transaction went smoothly; however, there were several glitches that the company could address that would make the experience largely stress free in future. Here are our complaints in the order of magnitude: Because we lived in NYC and expected there would be zoning restrictions on placing a container on the street in front of our house, we asked months in advance how we would need to proceed to satisfy the city's regulations. We made it clear that the container would be too large to fit in our driveway. We were told by more than one representative of PODS that having a container on the street would not be a problem and there was no need to secure a permit. The day before the container was to be delivered, we received a call telling us that we could NOT place a container on the street and that to avail ourselves of PODS' service we would be required to fill the container within a 4 hour window of time, at a major additional cost (roughly $400) for a service they called and quot;city service.and quot; In other words, we had to pay to have a rep stand by for 4 hours with the container, while we filled it, and then cart it away that same day. Of course, our original plan was to fill the container over several days. Because this would no longer be possible, we also incurred the cost of hiring movers to assist us to fill the container in such a short period of time. We also found that billing was immediate upon reservation of a container and that in the case of a cancellation, the bill was not adjusted immediately. This issue required multiple calls, invariably to different representatives, each of whom was most gracious and very willing to help and all billing issues were resolved satisfactorily; nevertheless, the system wasted a lot of our precious time and energy at a time when we were already under tremendous pressure. As noted, all representatives, without exception were helpful, though not always adequately informed. It seems that there is insufficient communication between and among departments and that reservations representatives aren't authorized to discuss billing matters with the customer. Thus there are gaps in the process that would be filled if all reps were individually assigned to particular customers to handle all aspects of that customer's move and particular needs. Despite the glitches we experienced, we would use PODS again, though in future we would know from past experience exactly what questions and issues to pursue and how to proceed to eliminate unnecessary problems before they arose.

Once we had the storage units, everything was fine. However, it was getting them and then having the company take them away that was extremely problematic. One the day they were delivered, the delivery man arrived four hours late. To add insult to injury, he had to make two trips to our home. happened I called to schedule the pick-up (as well as when I scheduled delivery) I was told that a member of the Pods staff would call me the night before to let me know when the pick-up time would be. In short, this is unacceptable. What seems to be ignored here is the simple fact that I’m a customer -- their customer -- a customer whose needs are considered less important than the corporation’s needs. I have a busy schedule. In addition to my daily job, I’m also a firefighter at my local fire department. On the pick-up day in question, I was scheduled to go to the funeral of the Nassau police officer who was gunned down on the Long Island Expressway. He happened to also have been a firefighter in my station house. Moreover, my son was in a hospital at the time… a facility that has limited visiting hours. Yet none of this mattered to Pods, Inc. Instead, my entire day was held hostage to the company’s broken business model. As a result, scheduling anything for the day became an impossibility. The correct approach would have been to allow me to choose from a morning or afternoon time slot. In fact, I’ve never come across a company that doesn’t offer this. Thankfully Pods is not the only game in town and there are choices. Customers can do business with other storage providers that will be mindful of needs other than their own... especially when it comes to scheduling deliveries and pick-up times.

I haven't used them. They were nice people. They were very prompt and responsive.

They were great and I would use them again! It was very simple, on time and I had no worries.

I thought that this company saved us money in the long run. They were flexible and worked with our needs. It was convenient to have a storage unit on an ongoing basis. Nothing was broken during the move.