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Packers & Movers (P&M) are one those service providers you just cannot get away from. It’s almost impossible to come out of the experience happy and nice. There’s always something broken, something stolen, some extra charges padded, an extra pain to deal with, and on and on.

Pikkol, to my great surprise, did turn out a little different. However, I am not yet going all gaga over it. I do recollect with great fondness about the good times with Zoomcar, Uber, and Ola (and also others when they were not yet well established). They all usually start going sour fairly soon enough. Will see how this goes. So far, though, it has been great.

It all started by logging on to their website and generating a quote by feeding in various elements and parameters. This can get a little tiring for those with more luggage. But typically one feeds in the bigger stuff and enter the approx number of carton boxes.

After chosing the typically biggies – Shoe Stand, TV, TV Stand, Refrigerator, Washing Machine, Microwave, Dining Table and Chairs, Vacuum Cleaner, Water Purifier, Dressing Table, Couches, Few things more, and about 40 carton boxes (for clothes, kitchen stuff, shoes, books, and other little things). This generated the quote. There’s this additional thing if you want to take insurance.

All good. Turns out, they give you 10 carton boxes for free. Most P&M take the carton boxes away immediately after moving, which is kinda annoying since you want a few days to set things. You can hold the boxes for few days more by paying extra. However, we thought 10 free boxes is good enough for many things and so we picked them up ourselves at the Pikkol office in BTM Layout, Bangalore.

The boxes given to us were brand new and good quality too. The typical dimensions of 24″ X 19″ X 19″ (have to double check those dimensions). They were big enough to hold good amount of stuff and carry them well.

Some Grouse –

  1. We were told that the transfer will be in a 19-feet truck. The one that showed up on moving day was 16-feet. They had to do another run to accommodate and complete the transfer. 
  2. The dimensions of the box were smaller than what we were told. However, I was happier with what they gave. Anything bigger would have been a bit more burdensome to handle. 
  3. They said 5-people would be sent for packing etc. However, there were 6 of them on the day. No issues. 
  4. The packers were mostly labor folks (from UP/Bihar). By themselves lacked any sophistication. For work to be done well I had to do quite some supervising. I would have expected Pikkol people to send in someone senior for this purpose.
  5.  It appears Pikkol outsources the job to other movers and packers! Strange, but true. 
  6. I did not have any noteworthy damage except the LPG cylinder trolley. One of the wheels came off and wouldn’t fit again. 
  7. As far I can tell, there has been no theft! This is actually a huge deal. 

They turned up within 30-min of the chosen time. Went about their work with some supervising.

Finally, they unloaded everything on time without issues. Put the dismantled things (Bed, TV, etc) back together.

All in all, it was a fair deal. Price was comparable to what other P&M’s quoted. Work was done without having to yell at anyone.

One thing though, I found it very helpful to speak calmly and respectfully even if the other folks were trying to be rude at times. They do come around well. Not only that, there would be small things missed in the quote. With a good interaction, they will accommodate without issues. If you are bitter, they just might stretch everything and make the headaches into a migraine.