A recent survey confirmed what many of us already knew: Military families are overwhelmingly satisfied with the high-quality moving services provided under today’s PCS system. These results contradict TRANSCOM’s new satisfaction metrics, which seem to muddy the water and skew customer opinions.
Some of the compelling results were published this week in a Federal News Network article, specifically that “90% of respondents were happy with how the companies handled their shipments, and 83% were happy with the timeliness of their move.”
As the article points out, TRANSCOM measures things a bit differently. In a baffling departure from measurements that account for five different levels of satisfaction (ranging from “very unsatisfied” to “very satisfied”), TRANSCOM is now measuring things in more of a pass/fail way.
This has led TRANSCOM to publicize that just 78% of families have been satisfied with the current system. This is misleading, of course, because industry insiders know that to TRANSCOM, a “5-star” response is considered 100% satisfied, but a “4-star” response is considered to be only 75% satisfied.
Instead of relying on this new kind of math gymnastics, we wanted to verify TRANSCOM’s results. Our results told a different story.
Movers for America worked with a third party to conduct an independent scientific survey of nearly 950 military families – and unlike TRANSCOM’s low response rate, which hovers around 20%, we received 99% participation. Check out the survey’s key findings:
Summary of Key Findings
- About 9 in 10 respondents said their military relocations within the past four years met or exceeded expectations.
- 70% of respondents who experienced domestic relocations within the last 12 months believe military moves have improved under the current system.
- Relocations have become less stressful in the last 12 months, with families averaging a 5.8 out of 10 in terms of stressfulness, down from a 6.2 in the previous 1-4 years.
- About 85% of respondents expressed concern over potentially negative impacts on military families from the new GHC contract.
- Nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) want to see the new GHC contract canceled.
- Respondents expressed significant concern about systemwide issues with the GHC contract, including added burdens and financial strains on military families and the potential harm to small businesses and independent owner-operators.