Adding RMR to Access Accounts
At most, dealer personnel who manage the remote services are typically asked to add or delete credentials, run reports and perhaps open a door remotely. These are not services considered high priorities, but have great value for customers that don’t have the resources to do it themselves.
When undertaking a remote-managed service, it’s important for a dealer to establish clear guidelines and expectations. For example, specify that all requests during normal business hours are handled within a specified period, and requests that are made after-hours are processed the following morning. For dealers that do decide to offer some form of continuous service, they can elect to charge an after-hours fee, or similar.
End-user Web access is another RMR-generating service the dealer can offer for customers who desire round-the-clock access. With this option, the end user can actually log onto a secure Web site and perform basic functions, such as adding/deleting cards and running basic reports like card and event history.
This service, however, does not eliminate the dealer’s role in remote management because the dealer is still the only party that has the full range of functionality that allows the system to generate more-detailed reports, upgrade software or change door time schedules. Basically, the end user only has enough functionality to perform very simple tasks without compromising the system.
Defining Remote-Managed Access
Among the remote services software enables dealers to offer are: responding to requests for adding and deleting access cards; creating customized reports on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basis; receiving detailed reports via E-mail and Web-enabled devices; and granting customers limited system access through a Web browser interface that lets them manage cards and create their own reports.
As with most value-added services offered to everyday consumers (cell phone Internet service, for example), the key selling point is convenience — being able to simply make a phone call to a dealer and immediately have a new employee added to the company badge list, for instance, is a huge timesaver. The technology is especially appealing for customers that don’t have a full-time person to manage their access control system.
“Most of our customers were telling us they were exasperated with the data management part of access controls,” says Harbour. “Loading cards, deleting cards, backing up their computers every 20-30 days, those were the biggest complaints. Now, we pick up that challenge for the customers, which makes the system much more appealing.”
And just as mobile phone features like text messaging add a little more revenue each month for a wireless communications dealer, remote-managed access control features such as badge management and reporting can greatly increase the value of a new or existing access control account.
Because remote-managed access control is a naturally good fit for central stations, some dealers may worry that adding it to their portfolios means turning their offices into central stations — which, in so
me cases, could be a burdensome and expensive proposition. These dealers are understandably hesitant at the thought of having to commit personnel and budget to monitoring a customer’s installation around the clock.
However, the notion that providing remotely managed services equates to taking on the role of central station is unsubstantiated. There is, after all, a reason why it’s called “managed” services, and not “monitored.”
The functionality offered by remote-managed access control is not as critical as functionality offered by a central station. It’s still not the dealer’s role to coordinate with first responders during emergencies or handle similarly critical functions.
At most, dealer personnel who manage the remote services are typically asked to add or delete credentials, run reports and perhaps open a door remotely. These are not services considered high priorities, but have great value for customers that don’t have the resources to do it themselves.
When undertaking a remote-managed service, it’s important for a dealer to establish clear guidelines and expectations. For example, specify that all requests during normal business hours are handled within a specified period, and requests that are made after-hours are processed the following morning. For dealers that do decide to offer some form of continuous service, they can elect to charge an after-hours fee, or similar.
End-user Web access is another RMR-generating service the dealer can offer for customers who desire round-the-clock access. With this option, the end user can actually log onto a secure Web site and perform basic functions, such as adding/deleting cards and running basic reports like card and event history.
This service, however, does not eliminate the dealer’s role in remote management because the dealer is still the only party that has the full range of functionality that allows the system to generate more-detailed reports, upgrade software or change door time schedules. Basically, the end user only has enough functionality to perform very simple tasks without compromising the system.
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