SYRACUSE, N.Y. — It is no secret that false alarms are major problem for law enforcement and the security industry.
A significant percentage of these false dispatches are caused by the inability of the monitoring center to reach persons on the emergency call list who can verify if there is a user error or no need to send police, fire, or medical help based on their unique knowledge of the circumstances at that time.
Rapid Response Monitoring is looking to eliminate these scenarios with of solution that the monitoring services provider says has already achieved significant results.
“Over the past five years, we have seen the percentage of calls answered by contacts on a call list drop to an average of 30%,” says Spencer Moore, vice president of sales & marketing for Rapid Response Monitoring. “This means multiple calls have to be made and critical time is wasted, resulting in unnecessary dispatches.”
This type of situation can cause a financial burden to first responders, as well as potentially result in a fine to the owner of the alarm system. A false dispatch can also unnecessarily create the chance for injury as first responders are responding as quickly as possible to the emergency.
“An increasing number of call list contacts have elected to be contacted by text message. Those that have elected for text messages have responded more than 70% of the time resulting in a significant reduction in false alarms,” says Moore. “We are encouraged by this and it’s impact on false alarms which are dangerous, expensive, frustrating and cause attrition across the industry. Our goal is to significantly reduce false alarms with improved customer communication. It is for this reason that we developed rapidSMS.”
rapidSMS is a service that notifies customers instantly of an alarm, providing an app-like experience via a text message. It allows the recipient to make critical decisions in real-time and take action quickly. No app is required and all mobile devices are fully supported.
“Rapid Response was expecting to release rapidSMS at ISC West, however, this solution is too important to postpone. We have already seen a 40% reduction in the occurrence of false alarms during the beta testing phase. We are hosting a digital premiere event on April 2nd at 2:00 PM EDT rather than waiting for the show,” says Moore.
A registration link for the digital premiere can be found on Rapid Response Monitoring’s Linkedin page, or you can register directly here.
