45-Year Veteran Driver Skip Austin Saves 5-6 Hours Per Job with Driver

Meet Skip Austin, One of the Real Drivers Behind Driver

In 1978 Skip Austin bought his first truck at just 21 years old. The loss of his father pushed him into something he had done as a summer job in college. In fact, Skip was conceived on a move from Baton Rouge to Birmingham and both his kids were conceived in a truck. Over the years, Skip has set a standard for professionalism in this industry.

“When my customers look in my truck, they say, ‘Wow! That’s cleaner than my house!’” His truck floor always has a fresh coat of wax, his pads are square, and everything is clean. No trash.

Skip was a driver for over 30 years at North American Van Lines, then a driver for Arpin for 8 years, where he taught other drivers his methodology of inventorying household goods. Including drawing tic tac toe boards on every surface of a medium-sized moving box. For the last few years Skip has been helping drivers in every aspect of their jobs for Hampton Roads Moving and Storage

Driver is a Tool Built for the Moving Industry and By the Moving Industry

What made Skip particularly unique was his willingness to embrace new technology. In 2008 the founders of MoveHQ approached him to test a new Driver App for iPads. “It was built from stuff I had been doing for the past 25-30 years.” he shared, “I’m tickled to death that they listened, and I’m tickled to death that they allowed me to contribute to the product!”

There is a ton of different software in this industry. What makes Diver and all of MoveHQ’s tools unique is our founders have been deeply ingrained in the industry for many years. Brian Ferguson was building survey tools on a Blackberry in 1998. You’ve probably encountered one of our products over the years, and as you can imagine, we’ve gone through many names. Skip affectionately refers to Driver as “Move Pro”.

But one thing remains the same. Our tools are built in partnership with our customers. Skip told me, “These guys who wrote the code, they freakin’ listened!”

This App Protects Drivers

“Your inventory will keep you out of trouble.” Skip says, “Other inventory systems are all generality. It just says edge scratched.” He laughs and exclaims, “There are over a dozen edges. You have to be specific!”

Skip especially likes that when you take photos, they are all time and date-stamped. Plus, high-resolution images make it easy to zoom in and see details without taking pictures from many angles. This feature came in handy when he discovered a customer had moved several times with the same broken TV and got paid out of claims each time! Not with Skip and his time and date-stamped photos.

Skip Saves 5-6 Hours on Every Job using Driver.

“The inventory is the best part of this program, and the scanner is the 2nd best part.” Skip recommends investing in a barcode scanner. You can find some inexpensive ones on Amazon or eBay.

“When I’m doing my inventory, I’ll tag everything in a room. I don’t need to put things in any order. The software is going to do that for me.” He continues, “I can even scan a barcode already on a TV, and it’s going to load all of the details directly into the app.”

“It saves me 5-6 hours per job!” He doesn’t need to find a mailbox anymore. “I hit two buttons, and it’s all signed off and finished.” Plus, he’s cutting his inventory time in half with his scanner.

There are other benefits to taking your job completely digital. “Handwritten inventories? We’re talking about drivers here!” He chuckles. “It’s like they’re writing with their toes.”

“I have experienced every other inventory system, and not one of them can hold a candle. Not even close.”

The Most Beloved Driver App Out There

“This software is the best thing out there,” Skip says, but it’s not just him that feels this way.

One time his employer threatened to switch to a new software, “The drivers that worked there said they would quit if they went to a different program.” He explained the main reason was, “Nobody wants to handwrite inventory anymore. It takes too long. You can do so much more with this in such a shorter amount of time.”

“This is just what we want.”

Ready to start saving time and protecting yourself from claims? Get started with Diver today.