Can anyone recommend a decent Monitoring Centre that provides Bureau monitoring, not a re-seller or one that sells their own systems?
Preferably in the Brisbane/ Gold Coast area.
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There are a few, its a niche business,
Independants (few and far between)
24monitoring (Sunshine coast)
ESQ (Bris)
GSSAM (Cairns)
apart from these ones, that compete with their own bureaus.
Instant
Alarm industries
House of security
National sec
Paradise
Statewide monitoring (Qld presidential)
Rechenberg (security plus)
Back2Base (Castle)
Electralarm
Cosec
Border
Dedicated Monitoring (Pride sec)
The obvious, Chubb, Signature, ADT,
Crimetech
Modern group
Last edited by Security-Tech; 26-11-08 at 06:23 PM. Reason: add one more
Thank you both. I was getting that impression from ringing and hearing sales pitches for their services whilst on hold. Surely that would constitute a conflict of interest or anti-competitive behaviour?
Best advice is to find a monitoring centre that purely monitors alarms. I have had issues being a bureau for companies that offer sales, service and installation not mentioning any names. Let's just say they were sending patrols to premises without alarm activations and purposely delaying contact with owners in the event of an alarm, it was a big shit fight that settled out of court any way. That's my piece of advice.
Yes bin there done that
It is a conflict of interest and you wouldn't be surprised how many companies are calling around at the mo asking if you'd like to change companies.
One issue I have is, they have your DBase, they know who your clients are,
I would strongly suggest getting any cms to sign a non disclosure agreement / confidentiality agreement before doing anything with anyone!
Cover your ar se a wise man once said.
But that being said others have bin known to give out details, contact customers direct, give leads to their favorites... (One of the ones I mentioned above had, but I think they've lifted their game now) HOPEFULLY.
I even have full glossies and company profiles from one mentioned, who blatantly put its own customers under its other banner, (this was growth from non paying Bureaus to start with which they gobbled up the client bases of those who went down the gurgular) its a well known fact. This may be why they recently started calling bureaus offering cheap cheap monitoring, to get back what it had when it started, but I thinks its to late from what I'm hearing from Installers/Bureaus.
Good luck
Dave.
Also look at Central Monitoring in Sydney, they have very good standards and structure
, enough said!
Holy thread revival batman.
intelliGEORGE (28-03-12)
There is no reason at all to assume that because a company has its own retail installation division, that they are going to actively compete against their own wholesale clients, steal their business etc.
Sorry, but none of your handful of clients are worth their entire reputation.
Can this happen from time to time? Yes. Sometimes totally by accident, for example one major company might have sales people who go door knocking and happen to acquire a client, unaware that this belongs to one of their bureaux. Obviously the salespeople aren't given an entire customer list and told "leave them alone" as this would cause more problems than it solved. Should it happen, it can usually be resolved quite quickly and is no reason at all to be scared of any great conspiracy to bite the hand that feeds these companies.
You just need contracts and agreements in place (which sadly seem to be absent in many security companies). In many cases, decent bureaux get a lot of service work for the monitoring centres' own clients, so it can be a win-win.
Have a look through Security Insider and take a look at ASIAL's list of certified monitoring centres and start ringing around. Don't focus too much on price. There will ALWAYS be someone cheaper and many security companies' entire sales strategy is to be cheap and to offer 3-12 months of free monitoring as an acquisition strategy. You will almost certainly pay for this later, due to poor service and sloppy administration which makes YOUR service look bad. Many companies haven't increased their price in a decade or more. Every single overhead they have will have gone up in this period so it can only mean they are cutting corners and getting worse elsewhere in the operation.
Ask to visit their monitoring centre and inspect their operation. If you turn up to a shithole that's covered in graffiti, the room itself is a mess and the server room looks like a rat's nest, then it goes to the core of their ability to run a quality operation.
If they are ungraded, they are incompetent and you should walk away. If anyone has a problem with that, then they can go and get graded or complain to someone who cares. Having said that, the presence of a grading certificate is no assurance of a quality operation and you should pay due diligence in making up your mind. However the lack of a grading certificate will tell you plenty. I've heard every excuse under the sun why grading is unneccessary, a scam, ASIAL gouging (FYI ASIAL currently charge nothing for this to members, less expenses) but all the excuses are simply that. Excuses.
Other clues: Their website. These operations involve a lot of technology. If a monitoring provider can't demonstrate basic expectations in this regard, they're probably doing the same thing they were doing 15 years ago. You want to affiliate to someone who is forward-thinking and progressive and can use a spell-checker.
Last edited by downunderdan; 28-03-12 at 08:10 AM.
Back 2Base Monitoring
Global Monitoring
Both in QLD and good!
Just looked them up. Back 2 Base says they are a member of ASIAL, so you should encourage them to submit to the certification process which is currently free of charge to members. Refer my earlier comments.
Can't find the other one.
A reputable monitoring company, whether or not they have their own install, service etc, should be not be regarded as a bad thing. They have a reputation to keep. I would certainly go for a smaller one over one of the larger control rooms. I've had experience with both. I am a bit biased though cos I work out of Alarm Indusries control room which is a very reputable one.They have plenty of bureaus and wouldnt dream of stealing someone elses clients. If they come across a client who they already monitor on behalf of a bureau they would contact the owner of the company first. This also goes for if a client rings up and asks to be changed over and then we find that we already monitor it on behalf of someone else. We would get straight on the phone and advise them what is happening.
There may be some that have had a bad experience along the way but this would have had to be a dodgy one to start with, surely. Choose a professional company thats been around for a while and ask for references if you want to be sure.
My comments, from 4 years ago, referred to an isolated incident I experienced. Since then I haven't had any issues with bureaus (Big or Small).
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