Re: Take Over Practices

["R.H.Campbell" <rh.campbell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think this gentleman's advice is absolutely spot on the money ! IMO, they
didn't steal an account as much as you lost an account (no flame intended)!
The question you should be concerned about is why ! Sure there will always
be a few penny pinchers who will leave you for a couple of bucks savings a
month; however, this customer chose to seriously degrade his overall level
of security, which seems to imply (perhaps), he was reacting in an emotional
way to the opportunity to leave you.

This is no flame against you, but I truly believe that if you are giving
quality service, and your pricing is not too far out of line, the chances of
a client leaving you for an unknown factor is pretty low. Real estate has
three rules..."location, location, location". IMO, the security business has
three as well..."service, service,service" ! The presence or absence of a
long term contract doesn't play too much into the scenario overall if the
customer is unhappy with services provided. That's why I get so many
takeover clients from ADT and the other mass market "paper flippers"......
prices totally out of line after the end of the contract, and poor service !

Speaking only from personal experience, a bigger risk lately is the loss of
clients to little companies who don't give a shit about the client's overall
security, and are willing to hook the panel up to VoIP !! I've lost quite a
few clients to a couple of local scumbag companies who do this as a matter
of course ! I figure if the client is so stupid that he'll jeopardize
everything for a few bucks a month, I'm probably better off without him.
Besides, once you reach a certain threshold, customers are coming in the
door faster than you can handle them anyway...

But with some customers, it certainly is... "go figure".....

RHC

"Everywhere Man" <alarminstall@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1146204193.707960.114260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Are you sure they didn't tie in the devices previously installed, and
> did you ask the customer at what point they lost confidence in you? Was
> the monthly fee you were charging them much higher than the new
> company? Did they have a previous service issue with you? I highly
> doubt a 'satisfied' customer will discard a 65 zone system for a 3 zone
> system with fob just because the new system is "free". Something made
> them jump ship.
> Rather than worrying about the sleeping habits of the other company you
> should be taking advantage of this situation and turning into a
> learning experience. Losing this one account might be a good thing if
> you make the proper adjustments so this doesn't happen with your other
> clients.
>
> J Barnes wrote:
>> I had one of my customers call me today to cancel service.  It seems
>> another
>> company just happened to be in the neighborhood and had a promotion going
>> on.  The promotion was a free alarm system with keyfob's.  So my customer
>> decided to go with the new company and get the free system.
>>
>>     They pulled out my DSC Maxis panel that had 65 zones and put in a 2
>> door
>> and a motion lick n stick special.   Im not sure how these guys can sleep
>> at
>> night when they do stuff like this.
>>
>> James B
>