TIL most false alarms come from user error, not gear failures

I was digging through our monthly service logs for the last 3 months and saw that 78% of our callbacks were from people entering the wrong code or leaving a door ajar, not bad sensors or wiring. That completely flips what I assumed after 10 years in this trade, since I always blamed the hardware first. Anyone else track their false alarm causes, or am I the only one who thought customers were barely part of the problem?

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haydenp9527d ago

We log everything on site before we touch a panel, and yeah, user error is way bigger than most techs want to admit. Just last week I drove 40 minutes out for a "faulty motion sensor" that turned out to be the homeowner's cat jumping on a shelf every night at 2 AM. Now I always ask for a time stamp on the alarm before I load the van, that saves me half the trips. A quick checklist for the customer, like "did you arm it with the side door unlocked?", kills about 60% of those callbacks before you even leave the shop. You probably already know this, but naming the exact code they typed wrong on the keypad has been the best way to get them to slow down next time. What do you put in your service notes to avoid the same customers calling twice?

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