Re: False alarms

["Bob Worthy" <securinc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Everywhere Man" <alarminstall@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1144702426.272614.144170@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Last week I was asked to address the local Chamber of Commerce
> regarding false alarms.
> Here's a brief article on the event.
> http://www.mvinquirer.com/chamber_meeting_of_april_6.htm
>
> What I would like to know is if I am alone in believing that if the
> alarm company were to be fined we would have a greater control over the
> amount of false alarms?

There has been a tremendous amount of work done on this is issue,
nationally, over the last 15 years. Every possible idea for a fix has been
investigated. If nothing else has come out of these efforts, the one that
stands out, is the willingness of public safety to finally partner with the
industry for a resolve. Although few rogues support no response, there may
be an equal few that supports the "fining of alarm companies" as a fix all
solution. It is not.

> My belief is, as stated in the interview, that we have the ultimate
> control over those who are not educated on how their alarm functions,
> as well as those who have faulty systems, or are just chronic abusers.

That is correct and when there is good communication between the private and
public sectors, these issues will surface and hopefully get resolved. That
is the goal.

> How many fines would we need to get hit with before we say goodbye to
> those who abuse their systems?

And when that happens, how many of them will simply pick up the phone and
call you to activate their alarm system. No body will refuse them. How many
fines will you be adding to your AP by simply adding a new client. The
industry doesn't have a list of the "who's who" to refer to when it comes to
bad customers.

 Are we really hooked on that RMR so
> badly that we will let the customer go wild?

Not at all. It is a proven fact that there is probably close to 10% of your
client base that is causing your false alarm ratio to increase. If you want
to know where these people are, look at your ageing receivables. Look at
your service tickets. You'll find them there. They are usually your biggest
headache anyway. They are costing you much more money than the little you
receive from them on the monitoring.

> How many fines would we need to be hit with before we make sure
> everything is properly installed, and the customer knows exactly how it
> works?

Give yourself and the industry more credit than that. This surely adds to
the problem but the installation is not a very high percentage when it comes
to the cause of false alarms. The lack of knowledge is a bigger problem, but
wouldn't you think that after the first false and a possible warning letter
from the PD might just make you get some training or at least inquire as to
what might have happened. Why wait for a second or a tenth. Again, there are
statistics to back this up. Although there are some companies using the
lickem and stickem mentality, again it is a proven fact that, on average,
they don't have any higher percentage rate than anyone else. In fact, a
couple of the nationals have a F/A percentage rate much less than some
others. They are slammed more but only because they have so much more
exposure. You have to look at number of alarms versus number of clients to
get an acurate picture.

> Fining the customer is a ridiculous solution that many cities employ.

Not when it is managed and done correctly and completely. No one is exempt,
especially the 3 major causes of FA's. Schools, churches, and government
buildings. There is proof that when an ordinance is administered properly,
it will drastically reduce false alarms.

> Our greatest detractors (the police) would become our biggest advocates

Other than a few rogues, public safety will still tell you to get an alarm
system, they recognize the value and they do work with the industry to come
to some sort of resolve. Check the IACP, FARA, SIAC and other state and
local committees that are being formed to partner on these issues.

> if we could lower the current false alarm rate of 90+% to less than
> 50%.

Where have you been on this issue? These type of calculations are the ones
used by the rogues I referred to. This is a shell game no one but them can
win when they are presenting their side of the issue. Let me make it as easy
and simplified as I can. There are 100 alarm systems installed in a city.
The police are dispatched to one alarm system and only one, for what ever
reason, ( user error, installation problem, weather related, cleaning crew,
etc.). This only happens once throughout the entire year. Would this be
exceptable? Most would say sure. Guess what? The industry is shown as the
bad guy because they had a dispatch to a system and it was unnecessary. One
alarm system, one dispatch, no unlawful act = false alarm. This example
reflects they responded to false alarms 100% of the time. There is no way of
getting a true picture as to whether a municipality has a F/A problem by
simply saying that the industry has a 98% false alarm problem. In my example
the false alarm ratio in that city is actually .01% annually. If the
opponents stated to the counsil they had an annual false alarm problem of 1
% city wide, do you think they could sell a no response policy? No. They
need to tell them about the 100% figure which does not tell the true story.

 At the rate we are going now the police will soon adopt no
> response policies so we can't really ignore this.

And we are not. There are tried and proven methods to reduce false alarms
and they are being put into place as fast as city, county and state
governments will allow. The International Association of Chiefs of Police
are endorsing many of the programs that are being used and some States have
even passed legislations that prohibits some of these rogues from adopting
policy for no response. They do policy because they know that they will
never get it through as an ordinance.

> In the end we would garner more business, and have less headaches.
> I'd welcome your opinions.

Ask your Chamber how many registered alarms there are in the city. Then ask
them how many dispatches did they have, how many were at the same address
once, twice, three times or more. This will give everyone a better picture
of what is actually happening. If they cannot tell you how many systems
there are, they are not on the right track.Ordinances do work. I have one
city here in Florida that has reduced F/A by 78%. There is another city that
has reduced F/A by more than 42% since adopting their ordinance. It is not
uncommon to recognize 40 to 70 percent after adopting a good ordinance. The
state of Florida is working towards mandating Enhanced call verification.
When this occurs, statistics show it should eliminate unnecessary dispatches
by as much as another 40% immediately. Dade County, one of the largest
counties in the country, reduced alarm dispatches from over 130,000 per year
to just over 68,000 last year by enforcing their ordinance. That sound like
alot of alarms and it is, but when you compare it to over a million alarm
systems, it is a great accomplishment and shows there is good work being
done. That figure represents a *true* false alarm percentage of .07% county
wide. A far cry from the 98% that some rogues like to report. Don't get me
wrong on this issue. I am a huge advocate of reducing false alarms, in fact
I am one of 4 alarm contractors that sits on a committee with the Florida
Police Chiefs Association. This is what the committee does. We will be
taking the same theory to the Florida Sheriffs Association to form a
committee there as well.  Part of a good alarm management program, a city
will show the alarm percentage for the companies registered in that city.
The bad ones will surface, so it is in everyones best interest to keep your
percentages low through what ever best works for them. These statistics are
public record. But, if you don't keep the charges for the false alarms
directly where they belong, these users that have been abusing the process
will no longer have any responsibility for their actions. We already have
identified companies that have budgeted the cost of FA fines for the year
rather than the cost of either fixing the system or training individuals
everytime there is a change. Go figure. It is better, through ordinance,
that if a customer is an abuser, the PD puts them on a no response list
until certain criteria is met. Much better way than going no response across
the board. It doesn't penalize the 90% that are conscientious users. That
way the abusers don't end up with you because I canceled them because of
abuse and then you end up with the headache. Now if I cancel them for non
payment and you want to pick them up that is up to you.
>