Re: The summer alarm salesman are coming

[JoeRaisin <joeraisin2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

nick markowitz wrote:
> yes once again the college kids will be coming around door to door
> selling alarm systems
> and then disappearing into the wood work.
> One of my dads friends bought into there slick sales and is spending
> $43.00 a month for next 5 years.
> although they did give him a free system with about $350.00 worth of
> equipment.
> And these kids have big stories to tell to how there $350.00  wireless
> system is so much better than the professional alarm system some one
> already has in there home .
> and every other lying cock and bull story they come up with.
> One of my customers heads the local block watch in her community and
> one of these kids
> told her how there system was endorsed by the local block watch group.
> what a sup-rise for the kid.
> Yes I realise there young ambitious and full of vigor and anxious to
> make money for school but if you ask me this is no way to sell systems
> and many of these summer companies have a long list of  consumer
> complaints filed against them as well to boot.
> free systems was the begining of then end of the alarm industry .

All you can really do is try and protect your customers.  Make up a
mailer that describes the biggest differences or gives them some
questions to ask these kids that will highlite either the systems
inferiority or the "saleman's" lack of understanding about what a real
security system is.

Or maybe something along the lines of Bob's "Why You Yugo Doesn't
Perform Like a Cadillac" letter.

While doing a system PM a while back, one of our customers was asking me
about the "lasershield" systems (Rush advertised it - it must be good).
  All I had to do was describe the vulnerability of not having line
seizure and the inconvenience inherent in a system that ONLY operates
with remotes and she realized that even in the alarm biz - you get what
you pay for.

In the end, all you can do is try and inform them.