tourman said:
RHC: Now you seem to be contradicting yourself Frank. I got the
distinct impression from your last post that you felt your company was
above all that. Now you tell me that your company does take over
"nightmare systems" and messed up professional systems. I'm not trying
to be argumentative, but which is it ? And more to the point, why
would you even touch these problem systems ?
Read my post again. We're not in the "business of doing takeovers".
When we are presented with one, however, the customer's on the hook for
bringing the system up to our standard. For instance: On a commercial
job, we use GRI contacts with integral EOL's. The PIR's must have
tamper switches (we use Paradox exclusively) and the EOL's must be
installed. The wires in the can must be individually identified and
documentation must be in the can. We use yellow and black for contacts,
red and green for power (except for keypads where the wire colours match
the terminals).
RHC: Now you're confusing me even more. Why wouldn't any company look
for clean, trouble free, professionally installed systems to takeover
if they had the chance?
Spend all the time you want "looking" for such systems. I prefer to
service existing clients and let the ones looking to get taken over,
come to me.
If that's "cherry picking" then we obviously
don't have the same understanding of what that term means.
From your response, you know exactly what I mean.
That's
simply one way to work smarter rather than harder !!
I don't "look" for take-overs. The ones that come my way aren't
"cherries" either.
As for customers
trying to worm out of long term contracts, I honestly know nothing
about that because I don't ask them to sign those sorts of contracts.
And I'd just as soon leave that issue alone. "Sleeping dogs", you
know...
RHC: I can't comment on Chubb at all, other than one instance where
they quoted a client of mine $1000 to partition an 864 (no kidding).
After we both stopped laughing, I did it for nothing in software !!
Shame on you. You should have charged $905.00. *Kidding*...
They also owe me money for unlocking some boards, and it's clear they
don't intend to pay, so we'll see what kind of service I give them
next round of boards.
The Chubb you know now is not the Chubb I used to work for. Since then
they've had several "sweeps" at the senior management level.
As for ADT in Ontario, their prices are
ridiculous, their service is piss poor at worst, spotty at best, and
their customer rapport seems to be non - existent.
Hmmm... ADT in Burnaby is an entirely different "cat".
Oh dear...did I
leave out their monitoring sucks....
Which centre? The one in Calgary used to be one of the better ones.
When their contracts are up, their
attrition rate must be horrible (it's a damn good thing they have long
term contracts or it seems to me they wouldn't keep their client base
for more than a few months..). To their credit, the majority of their
systems are usually well installed, which keeps my ongoing service
problems down.
Ever read the back of an Edwards (now GE) work order? If you get a
chance, have a look at one. I imagine companies like ADT think along
the same lines. Their techs are one of the best paid in the industry
and they have a benefits package that's hard to beat.
RHC: Well I can't speak for others, but I have no trouble giving
decent service at low prices without holding a gun (er..long term
contract) to the client's head. My customers are in the drivers seat,
and that's exactly where they ought to be. I've NEVER lost a client
because he went elsewhere for service or lower cost reasons. I suppose
it will happen one day but not yet anyway. Besides, the only people
lower in cost than I am are The Monitoring Centre in Toronto at $10,
and they don't offer in-house warranty or service to their customers.
So if a customer is stupid enough to leave to save $5 a month and give
up his warranty and my included service then so be it ! I would just
write that client off as a bit of a dim bulb and move on......
)
A wise man once told me that the company that offered good service and
fifteen dollar a month monitoring service will "clean up". We go one
better. If the customer pays up front for the year, he gets two months
free.
RHC: Yeah, I thought it was although it didn't generate much interest
it seems. But thanks for your responses.....oh, well ....back to
sleep....
Heh! Sleep? What's that?
