Making Security as Affordable as Possible

In many of our posts, we encourage readers to purchase solid, “built-to-last” security equipment. The old adage that you get what you pay for rings especially true in this industry. Customers can purchase cameras, burglar and fire alarm equipment, and lock hardware at varying prices and levels of quality. Unsurprisingly, those that choose products on price alone often end up disappointed. Having said that, we still believe in assisting our customers in making security affordable while still installing effective equipment. In this post, we share some tips to help you execute your own affordable security plan.

First, we will explain the importance of choosing the right security company. Finding someone who offers a variety of security options certainly keeps overall security prices down. Then, we will show you how involving the company you choose while designing security measures can cut cost. From there, we will share a few tips to help save on service call-related expenses. After all, the issues behind service calls often sneak up on customers and create an unexpected expense. Now, let’s get started by showing you why working with a complete security integrator can cut down on security-related expenses.

Work with a Company that can Provide All Your Security Needs

A few months ago, we created a primer on Choosing the Right Security Provider. Of course, security equipment serves an extremely important purpose. Therefore, you should choose wisely when picking a partner when planning your security. In that post, we touched on the idea of finding one company that can provide all of your security needs. Finding this company can provide many benefits that can help with making security affordable.

As an example of why, imagine that a power issue creates problems with both your surveillance and burglar alarm systems. Obviously, having one technician show up and take care of each of these issues in one trip will cost less than receiving service from multiple security companies. Therefore, finding an “all-in-one” security company can provide you the most efficient and cost-effective service possible. For this reason, we pride ourselves in offering a tremendous variety of services to our customer base. Now, let’s look at why allowing your security company to help design your security measures can cut down on cost.

Invite Your Security Company to Help with Project Design

When we perform site surveys for customers, we have a couple goals in mind. First and foremost, we focus on adding as much security as possible based on the application and our customers’ selection of products and services. Additionally, we strive to provide this security as efficiently as possible. Oftentimes, we find some ways to cut down on the price of the work during these visits.

For example, our surveillance customers may have ideas on where they want to install cameras. However, after our walkthrough we often find new installation locations that allow us to cut down on a few camera locations without sacrificing security. We can provide this type of advice across the board for our different services. Therefore, we recommend working through your plans with your security provider. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised at the suggestions they have to save you some cash! These last couple tips have focused on choosing your security provider and working with them for help in making security affordable. Next, we’ll switch our focus to some ideas for helping you cut down service call costs.

Don’t Set up Service Calls for Work You Can Complete

At some point, all of our customers will need to have work performed on their security equipment. Every type of security equipment whether electronic or mechanical, will at some point require maintenance. Unfortunately, this maintenance can prove costly. However, as a customer, you can take steps to cut down on how much you pay for service calls. For starters, call your security provider and explain any issues to them. In many instances, we can walk customers through troubleshooting, and even solving the issue completely, over the phone.

As an example, wireless security equipment will often “beep” at customers when batteries start dying. At this point, many customers call us to come out, see why the system started protesting, and address the issue. In this case, we would rather explain to customers how to diagnose their alarm’s issue. Then, we can sell them the batteries they need over the counter to install themselves. This saves quite a bit of labor cost. We come across many such examples of issues that we help customers solve without the expense of a service call. Picking up the phone and providing the best description of the issue as you can will save you from paying a lot more money than the problem warranted!

Bring Equipment that Requires Servicing in to Your Security Company

Security equipment must receive periodic service for a variety of reasons. In some cases, these services do not have to do with wear and tear, but rather with legal requirements. For example, businesses must have their fire extinguishers inspected annually. Many customers pay for us to come out and inspect their extinguishers every year. Of course, this involves both a labor cost onsite and a cost for our travel time to and from the business. Often, the travel time actually costs more than the onsite labor! The fewer extinguishers customers have onsite, the greater the chance this happens.

In this case, customers can save quite a bit of money by driving the extinguishers down to us. We can inspect and service the extinguishers in our shop, either while you wait or as a drop-off and pick-up service, and you will end up paying the best price possible for this work. Likewise, we encourage customers who wish to have one or two locks rekeyed to bring the locks to us if possible. While it takes a little bit of your time to make this happen, many customers find the potential savings well worth it. Now, let’s look at one more way we try to help with making security affordable by cutting down on service call-related expenses.

Take Advantage of Service Plans and Warranties

We discussed how alarm service plans and extended warranties can help ensure proper system operation in our Five Tips for Security System Maintenance. In that post, we focused mainly on how these service plans help keep your system up and running. In addition to this important benefit, these plans can also save you money. Our customers with extended warranties receive free parts and labor for any issue they run into for the entire life of their alarm system. This provides an effective way to guard against unexpected service call fees.

The larger the alarm system, the more money an extended warranty can save you. After all, more equipment means more chances for something to fail. Furthermore, more comprehensive alarms generally prove harder to troubleshoot than smaller alarms. Unknown or hard-to-track issues only get more difficult to solve when there are more pieces of equipment and more wiring to check and test. For this reason, our commercial customers especially tend to take advantage of these warranties.

Putting it all Together and Making Security Affordable

We hope that this post helps you design and install effective and affordable security equipment on your property. If you have any questions about the material here, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will happily answer any security-related queries related to both residential and commercial security. Furthermore, we encourage you to take advantage of our free site survey program. We offer free walkthroughs and quotes to both new and existing customers alike. During our visit, we can address any security concerns you may have. Additionally, we can make suggestions of our own based on our observations. Together, we can create a plan that keeps your property, and anyone on it, as safe and secure as possible without breaking the bank.

 

Stock photos in this post used under the Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 License.