When Is the Customer Not Always Right?
All too often, talk concerning our industry dwells on negative aspects such as false alarms, unscrupulous trunk-slammers and companies concerned more about dollars than what should be the overriding mission of our profession — helping ensure the safety of people’s lives and property. However, I don’t believe this fairly represents the majority of our colleagues.
I believe most of us in the industry are very conscientious. This brings me to the predicament I want to throw at you this month, as it applies to security companies committed to excellence and premium customer service. Here’s the set-up: Let’s say you are hired by a midsize commercial enterprise to design, engineer and install a comprehensive security system for an existing building.
With the input of the client’s security director, you go to great lengths to understand all of your client’s operating procedures, systems and infrastructure. You discuss contingency plans, emergency response protocols, etc. You painstakingly evaluate all the possible parameters to provide the most effective security system possible with the least amount of human intervention.
With all the necessary data collected and analyzed, you confidently enter the implementation phase. About halfway into the project, things start to unravel. You begin hearing rumblings from the security director that senior management is having second thoughts about of your system design elements.
So there you are, having already held your meetings with IT and other key personnel, spent countless hours drawing up blueprints, ordered the equipment, scheduled manpower and extended yourself out on a limb financially. To make matters worse, after meeting with and appealing to senior management, they refuse to budge. Despite your recommendations, they demand you take shortcuts that severely undermine your philosophy to “do what’s right.” The security director is frustrated as well, but unfortunately the best he can offer you is a shrug.
In a similar scenario, you’ve actually completed the job and it went exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that you are dreaming up grandiose plans to use it in your marketing materials to showcase your work — possibly even submitting it for a coveted SSI Integrated Installation of the Year Award!
However, a short time later, your phone starts ringing with the security director on the other end of the line requesting you modify the functionality of their new system. He tells you that the company founder is annoyed by the “inconvenience” of using a key fob between the accounting and shipping departments. Against your better judgment, you accommodate the request.
Soon thereafter, the phone rings again. This time the security director tells you the owner received a complaint from an employee because a camera made her feel like “Big Brother” was looking over her shoulder and she had threatened to notify the ACLU. Once again, against better judgment, you are forced to disable one of the cameras.
Having already accepted that this job is probably not destined to be the marketing showcase you envisioned, the phone rings yet again. This time, the security director tells you that the janitorial company — which happens to be owned by a longtime personal friend of the founder — wants the cleaning crew to have carte blanche access anywhere in the facility at any time because he says they are “honest” people.
Slowly but surely, your masterpiece is coming apart at the seams. You find yourself in a quandary as your integrity and credibility are being compromised, not to mention the potential legal liabilities. If you’ve been in business for any length of time, I’m betting that these situations will sound all too familiar.
Sure, “the customer is always right” — but just how far should that go? Even the best designed electronic security system, installed by the best service provider, using the most advanced technological equipment is bound to fail without commitment and acceptance of everyone within the enterprise, from the top down. Problematic or apathetic management means poor security. What would you do in these situations?
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