Re: An ethical conundrum... Opinions welcome!

[Frank Olson <use_the_email_links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim wrote:
> On Nov 29, 4:47�pm, "Doug" <n...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> "Jim" <alarmi...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>
>> news:c9c11d75-d31b-46c3-bcdb-878d0424a1b7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> On Nov 29, 1:26?am, Frank Olson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <use_the_email_li...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> That may all be true but, If the owner has a contract with the old
>>> alarm company, what's stopping them from accelerating the contract to
>>> obtain the balance due? Whether they were right or wrong, they can
>>> still attempt to enforce the contract and the owner will have to
>>> afford the defense fees, if to obtain only the fact that they were
>>> negligent (and probably not grossly negligent). Rather than do that,
>>> ( again, regardless of who is right or wrong) At that point the owner
>>> can just tell you to forget the monitoring and they'll just continue
>>> the monitoring contract with the old alarm company or ..... worse, the
>>> owner signs your contract, for what ever �your term is and then he
>>> finds out the old alarm company wont let him out of their contract.
>>> Now he's obligated to two contracts both of which are enforceable.
>>> What do you do? Back down or take him to court if he decides to go
>>> with the other alarm companys monitoring? �Either way you lose.
>>> Maybe this is something you should bring out into the negotiations
>>> now, just so there's no surprise. If you're going to potentially miss
>>> out on the monitoring, you may want to rethink your installation
>>> costs. ( However, admittedly, �I don't know how your price your jobs)
>> I doubt that any profit from monitoring plays a large part in the pricing of
>> a major fire alarm system and the inclusion or exclusion of a monitoring
>> contract is probably not a deal breaker. Even over a five year period the
>> income from monitoring �such a system is likely to be an almost
>> insignificant amount compared to the installation cost.
>>
>> Doug-
>
> It doesn't have to do entirely with the monitoring.
>
> I presume that the company that does the monitoring will also do the
> inspections and maintenance through the years, also. Which (again, I
> presume) is somewhat more substantial than the monitoring. The old
> company apparently didn't provide that service so it would benefit the
> owner to again go with that company rather than Franks, whom I'm sure
> would have a scheduled maintenance and inspections schedule that the
> owner would have to pay for.

Monitoring companies are just that (in Canada), monitoring.  They don't
provide other services besides guard response (and a lot of times that
can be arranged through another agency too).  In the lower mainland,
there are a number of fire service companies that provide the annual
testing and emergency service of life safety systems.  I wouldn't mind
taking this account over and we stand a better than average chance here
since we already deal with the property management company on a number
of other buildings.



>
> By the way, although I don't do commercial fire alarms anymore, if I
> were doing a large installation such as this you could be damn sure
> that the monitoring wouldn't be just $15.00 a month. Big system, big
> bucs.
>
> I'm a strong proponent of pricing things based on the percieved value
> of the service and the ability of the client to pay, not by my cost.
> Someone has to be the reason for continuing inflation. It may as well
> be me.

As for your comment on the monitoring fees.  They're $15.00/month
regardless of how deep the customer's pockets.  I can't see charging
more just because the building's bigger, or has a bigger fire alarm
system.  We're still only processing three primary signals (alarm,
trouble, and supervisory).  What you're suggesting would be akin to a
salesclerk at Sears sizing up the customer at her counter and charging
for a pair of Sears branded jeans on the basis of what that customer's
wearing at the time (or the size of the purse/wallet they keep their
money in).

We assume a lot more liability through the annual testing and
maintenance of the fire alarm system and that's where the extra charges
come in, not the monthly monitoring.  Mind you, this system (as most
fire alarm systems) will require a GSM module which will add $10.00 a
month regardless.  What burns my butt about the previous company is that
the charged about what we would for the service, yet employed a single
line dialer with no back-up, and no test signal for $3.00 a month less
than what we are going to charge for the ULC listed service...  Go figure!