Blog

Perception Versus Reality

“My security system is mission critical to our organization.”

Is the system support structured to reflect the criticality to the organization of the system functioning properly?

Perception verse reality. Once purchased and installed and operating, does the system owner have a system support agreement with the provider to ensure response time and repair to support required system uptime? The perception of new systems for many customers is twofold: 1. The system will not fail and or 2. If the system does fail the provider will respond immediately. Reality is different. Even new systems will fail, often not due to component failure but due to other reasons such as; the area has utility power dips regularly, network stability is an issue during certain times of day, operator error in using the new security system software, the most challenging one is when the owner is frustrated because the system is not functioning the way he/she expected it would, and lastly yes, sometimes components of the new system fail after just a short period of time though, this is not usual.

A new system owner facing any of the above issues impacting system performance will be frustrated and dissatisfied, and that makes sense. Our approach at M3T is to create a “Reality” of known, defined system issue response and resolution. We use SSA’s or Service Support Agreements to fulfill a promise to our clients which entails:

  • We promise to respond to your call during these hours and days
    • In this timeframe
    • In this manner
  • We promise to charge you this rate structure based on servicing in these hours
  • We promise to conduct preventative measures on these pieces of equipment or these software systems and provide you status reports following each visit

By aligning with our SSA Program, our clients’ perception of their system support is grounded in the outlined standards of our agreement. They hold us accountable to the agreed standards as we do ourselves. There is no mutual mystification around system support – both parties know what to expect and what to do.

How about the current support on your security system?   

John Maffey

President & CEO