A false alarm can be stressful for a business owner, wasting their time, money and resources. False alarms cause businesses needless worry, wastes their time while they figure out what happened and is just generally frustrating.
But the headache of a false alarm won’t be nearly as problematic as a false dispatch. Let’s take a look at what both a false alarm and false dispatch is, and how your business can prevent it through a verified alarm system.
What is a false alarm?
A false alarm is an alarm that’s triggered on accident. In these situations, there’s no emergency that requires attention. False alarms can be caused by an animal tripping a motion detector, a door that is not correctly secured or someone forgetting their password and being unable to disarm the system. It could also be due to an old or improperly maintained system that no longer works as it should.
The vast majority of CCTV security systems have a false alarm rate of 98 percent.
What is a false dispatch?
A false dispatch is when an emergency response team is unnecessarily sent to your business due to a false alarm. This is a waste of time and resources for the authority that responds. As such, many emergency services will either charge a fine for false dispatches or, in some cases, not respond at all.
For example, Calgary Police Services charges up to $675 for a false alarm. If it is a false dispatch due to a fire alarm, it could cost you up to $1,500.
In Red Deer, a false alarm can cost up to $750.
In Vancouver, if you have two false alarms within a year, you will receive a warning letter. Three or more and it may affect response to future calls.
In some situations, as is the case with the Alberta RCMP in response to the high rate of false alarms, alarms will have to be verified before police respond and they will not respond to alarms that are only triggered once.
Neither false dispatches or false alarms are a great omen for the security of your business. In some situations, it could cost you hundreds of dollars. In others, you may not get a timely emergency response, if you get one at all.
How to prevent false alarms and false dispatches
There are some simple steps you can take to prevent false alarms and false dispatches:
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Make sure you know how your system works before the technician, who is setting up your system, leaves. If your system is already installed, call your security company and ask if they do training. You can also read through the manual.
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Have your system inspected annually to make sure it is operating properly and doesn’t need any maintenance.
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Properly train your staff to use the system and ensure they know their passcodes.
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After you make any changes to your property, contact your security company to make sure they won’t affect your system or accidentally trigger the alarm.
The problem is, none of these are a fail-safe way to truly prevent false alarms and false dispatches. The only true way of preventing these risks is to implement a verified alarm system that verifies a threat as real before alerting the police.
At Sonitrol Western Canada, we verify every alarm through audio and video surveillance before sending a call to emergency services. If it is a false alarm, we simply reset the system without bothering you or the authorities.
If a crime is in progress, our operators will send for the police, without alerting the criminal, and relay everything that is happening to the authorities, assisting with the apprehension of the criminal.
Because of this ability to verify alarms, Sonitrol has the highest apprehension rate (over 182,704 apprehensions and counting) and the lowest false alarm rate (less than 3 percent) in the industry.
Due to our verified alarms, low false alarm rate and brand reputation, you can feel confident that police will respond quickly. In fact, our average response time is just 3.5 minutes. Without verification of the alarm, it can take police upwards of 45 minutes to respond or, in some instances, the authorities won’t respond at all.
Interested in learning more about our unique verified alarm systems? Contact us today and learn how we can help protect your business from theft, vandalism and violent crimes.
