I have been working with Eddie West (West Express) and Scott Shipley (A&O Delivery) to attempt to improve service levels in their customer interactions, to make them better companies. These are my default carriers for most 'White Glove" delivery service of your upholstery and I have used them for the past decade. We have spent quite a bit of time on the phones this past month, because I hear YOUR complaints and talk to them about those issues.

First of all, its important to realize this "White Glove" kind of business is never - EVER - going to run like Amazon, UPS or Fed Ex, either in timeliness, tracking, speed or professionalism. Not going to happen folks, so if you are expecting that kind of service level you will be disappointed. There are long distance companies that load a single truck full of furniture and head into a region to make home deliveries. There have no hand-off terminals, no air freight, and it takes some time to roll a truck from North Carolina to points outbound. In nearly all cases, the guys loading the truck are the same ones bringing it into your home. This is a hard business, and a low-margin business. How many people do you think dream of a career hauling furniture hundreds of miles in a diesel truck, then getting to someones home and carrying a 300 lb armoire up to the second story bedroom? The answer is: Not Many.

There are plenty of on-line YELP and Google complaints out in cyber-space on all these kind of delivery companies, negative reviews are the norm. Yet, not all these companies are alike. The reason I use West Express and A&O Delivery is because they generally have polite and courteous drivers, they take care of any damage in transit, and do so for what I think is a reasonable price. There is another large delivery service company I stopped using because they denied every damage claim, even though they were quicker on delivery times - that became unsustainable after hearing "It came from the factory like that" about the 50th time. Where West and A&O Delivery have lagged behind is communications with the customer. They are very hard to get hold of and frequently do not return phone calls. That's been my focus on convincing them to improve. And they have listened.

So, starting this week some changes are being implemented, hopefully this will make it far better.

1) I will send West your email address once your order has shipped. They in turn, will send you a notification they have your order, and then a follow up (automatically generated) 8 days later if if they have not yet booked your trip with you, just to say "We haven't forgotten about you".

2) They have hired a person to return phone calls effective today. That is this person's primary job, to be YOUR call back or contact person. This is a significant cost for them, and shows me they are serious about having better communications.

3) In the past, if a driver was running late - they left it up to the driver to call the customer. Now they have tasked their Dispatch Control to make that phone call, and that should mean you will get better updates on your delivery time.

In the future we are discussing web-based booking / acceptance of a trip schedule, but we're not there yet, primarily because West has to confirm with you over the phone that an 18-wheeler can get access to your property, and discuss delivery options if it cannot.

I'm very excited at the delivery process becoming even better, and would appreciate feedback on how these new communication changes are working. I listen, and so does West and A&O.