In a tough economic climate, most businesses will be looking to reduce costs and that means security budgets, alongside all other expenditure, will come under close scrutiny.
Anything that can help maintain the battle against theft and fraud, whilst at the same time offering the potential to reduce operating costs, must therefore be welcome news to hard pressed security managers.
Business for commercially run remote monitoring centres is booming. The sales growth has been partly accelerated by innovative technological advances incorporated into the latest generation of intruder and fire detection, audio communication, access control, transmission and video surveillance products.
The ability to achieve a high level of integration of these products with the help of sophisticated operating software platforms can provide operators with high quality visual information and data to enable them to make the same decision that an on-site security officer might make, even though the operator might be in a control room, perhaps several hundred miles away.
Complementing guards
This has made it increasingly possible for ARCs and RVRCs to provide a service that can certainly complement the activities of security guards and in some situations, replace them.
I am not of course suggesting that manned guarding services will not in the future have a major role to play in deterring and detecting theft, vandalism and other criminal activity. In high security environments there can surely be no substitute for a well trained and managed team of security officers.
However, in environments where the level of risk to people, property or assets is regarded as relatively low, a remote monitoring service now has the potential to help clients minimise the number of security officers it needs to employ without compromising the ability to deter and detect any unwanted visitors.
I would therefore strongly urge installers and systems integrators to proactively encourage their clients to evaluate the positive benefits of utilising the services of a third party remote monitoring service.
Choosing a remote monitoring centre
There are plenty of ARCs and RVRCs to choose from, but undoubtedly some will be better than others in terms of the level of service they are ready, willing and able to provide.
So, here are a few pointers which I suggest need to be taken into consideration to help you decide which remote monitoring centre to recommend to your clients.
– Only consider ARCs and RVRCs which are accredited by either the NSI or SSAIB. This offers an assurance that the monitoring centre is built and operates to a high standard. Your client’s insurance cover will probably specify this.
– Which operating software platform(s) does the monitoring centre utilise? Are they able to work with open architecture security solutions which enable a wide range of security systems to interact with each other, regardless of whether they are analogue or IP based?
– Does the monitoring company have field based staff who are able to carry out site surveys before a contract is signed? This enables full engagement with the client to ensure any individual site requirements are met.
– How does the monitoring centre propose to measure and report on the number of activations? Will you and your client have remote access to a web based reporting system to allow you to see in real-time the level and type of alarm activations which occur at your client’s sites and the response of operators in the remote monitoring centre?
– It can be very frustrating, but it is a fact that quite often a detection system can be a victim of its own success in that it does what it is supposed to do, i.e. detect movement, but in the process, generate a false alarm.
This could be because the client’s site has open areas where members of the public have innocently strayed, but false alarms can also be generated for a variety of other reasons, such as moving tree branches, changing weather conditions and animals.
So, does the monitoring centre have in-house personnel with the expertise to drive down the number of false alarms and if necessary, visit the site with the installer?
– Will telephone calls be charged at local or premium rates? This might seem a petty point but telephone call charges relating to sites which have a high level of activity or a large number of false alarms can provide a nasty surprise in the form of an additional and unexpected substantial cost.
– We have all been in situations where an organisation has promised the earth to win your business. Do any of us actually investigate the reality of the customer service provision that will be delivered?
A high level of confidence in your chosen provider is vitally important as your monitoring provider has free access to your customer base. They are in effect operating on your behalf, so any bad service can reflect badly on you as an installer.
Have you actually asked your provider what customer care schemes they operate? Is an ethos of customer engagement actively encouraged? Once the contract is signed, will you actually see anyone from the company other than at contract renewal time or do they believe in a culture of customer intimacy?
Exceed exepections
As previously mentioned, there is no shortage of commercially run remote monitoring centres to choose from and the majority are operated on a highly professional level.
The above questions will, however, go a long way to ensuring that the client’s expectations are likely to be exceeded and that a significant reduction in the cost of security is achieved.