On average, between 94 and 99% of all alarm activations are false alarms. This means that reaction officers can spend most of their day responding to false alarms.
Wahl Bartmann, CEO of Fidelity ADT, says since false alarms are so prevalent, the resources security companies have available to respond to emergencies are placed under pressure, as are the monitoring centre resources.
“During Lockdown when resources are being stretched the problem is worsened and we have found an innovative way of addressing this issue through our new Virtual Agent System (VAS) that will automatically phone you after we receive a signal from your alarm system. This system enables you to interact with us and cancel a false alarm without speaking to an agent,” says Bartmann.
He says not only does this address the safety issue for our customers but it also minimises the risk of infection to our monitoring centre agents by reducing their travel to and from work and to our Reaction Officers responding to false calls. “Their effective functioning is critical to your safety,” says Bartmann.
He reassures customers that under no circumstances will this new system impact the quality of their service or delay the response to their alarm activation or emergency. “We have enough monitoring centre agents available to call you should you not elect to make use of the VAS. There will also be no impact on your armed response service. The new system will also enable our monitoring centre agents to focus on actual emergencies and improve the efficiency of our monitoring centres.”
He says safety will never be compromised as alarm signals will still be evaluated and prioritised as per existing procedures. Voice prompts will be used to assist customers through the process and for those customers that need to change their password to a numeric password, the monitoring centres teams will be available to do this.
“With security being an essential service, it is important we all work together to ensure everyone is safe during this Lockdown period,” concludes Bartmann.