Background for Creating the Interview Series
South Koreans move at least 4~5 time before settling into their newly bought condo. That’s why the moving industry is big in Seoul. They allow customers to turn the keys to the contractors in the morning and go to bed in a fully furnished apartment by the evening without lifting a finger. This service is called fully-packaged moving(포장 이사).
As Miso expanded its services to moving category, the marketing team needed photos and videos for Google Ads. I suggested that we go talk to our best moving service partners to understand what their needs are and to create content that gives a human face to the moving services that customers book through the app.
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Stories
Many of these partners are proud of what they do, considering their job as an honest way of making a living. Many have interesting personal stories on how they started their moving business, having gone through difficult times.
The interview pieces not only served as a chance for readers to look into lives of ordinary working class Korean men but also contributed to increasing conversion rate for the company’s online ads, as customers are drawn into ads with real human stories, not only marketing copies.
Curated, Translated Quotes from the Interviews
Jongsuh Park, a businessman running his moving service in SuwonWhat did you do before making a living out of moving service?
I worked for Samsung’s R&D team after college. I quit to start a business with some close coworkers. We supplied optical lenses, but one day our contractor suddenly closed the deal, bankrupting my company. The eight colleague who I started the business with equally split the debt. I was so broke. To pay the bills, my family had to sell off our condo and moved to a small apartment on the underground level. Looking around the new place after moving in our stuff, I hit my head against the door casing. I’m 168cm(5’5’’), so you can guess how tiny the place was.
I cried a lot after the move-in. I didn’t even have enough money for a pack of cigarettes. I was a heavy smoker, and one day I found an unsmoked one laying on the ground. I walked around it, thinking about picking it up. I couldn’t. My ego was still too big. That’s when I realized I had to make money by any means. I walked up to a local moving services center for a job. Having worked only in offices for years, I struggled to lift up heavy boxes. That day I headed home with four 10 thousand won bills ($10) in my hand. I had no idea I could make money like that.
Yongwoo Park, a moving service professional in SeoulWhat about the moving work is professional? People would think it as a no-brain, all-muscle work.
Well, that was the case when I first started off 20 years ago. It was just moving stuff—a no-brainer, like some people would call it. But it’s no longer like that. Furnitures and home appliances need to be first disassembled and then reassembled at the destination. Refrigerators, for example, used to be just electronic boxes. You fixed the door, wrapped it in plastic and moved it. Now they are bigger and often have complex structures. The same goes for TVs and washing machines.
What is the chief’s role in a well-functioning moving team?
My job is to coordinate. I know how to make the best working conditions for the team but am not the best worker. I take varying circumstances into account to come up with the optimal team members and working tools for the day. If the workers are tired out because of my miscalculations, customers can’t get a satisfying service. I have to be responsible of figuring things out before the moving day.
I don’t consider myself as a boss who pays out the team. The money comes from the customer. My job is bridging my team with my customer. If you think about it that way, things seem to work out smoothly. If I boss around on the moving day, nothing works out the way it should.
