Today I sat down with Jerry Howe the owner of Peak Alarm and we had a discussion about Peak and the industry. Jerry was explaining about vulnerabilities of some of our competitors and how many of them do not use encrypted security systems because they use the lowest cost equipment. He gave me an article that explained simple methods of defeating many of the systems. (Button below links to the article)

Jerry is concerned that companies offer security solutions that do not function properly thereby hurting the industry for those of us that are trained, those of us that do use encrypted equipment. Our Qolsys panel is encrypted and our DMP panel has frequency hoping to prevent hacking. Both of these systems cost a bit more than a do it yourself solution and we provide a professional installation and UL listed monitoring.

In this life you really do get what you pay for. I recently showed by boy scouts two knives, one that is a really awesome looking switch blade and another simple looking Kabar knife and all of them liked the switch blade that pops out with a touch of a button. I explained that the Kabar knife costs over 3 times what the other knife costs and there is a reason for this. The switch blade does not hold an edge and it is very poor quality steel and the kabar will hold and edge and is made of high quality steel.

Security systems are the same, if you can buy 10 cameras for 800 dollars at a big box store half the cost is the recorder so you are really paying about $40 per camera compared to our high quality cameras that cost more because of the quality. When you hold one in one hand and the other in your other hand you can feel the difference and see the difference in the operation and they will last longer.

Jerry told me to ask the contractors and owners that decide not to use Peak Alarm what we can do better or different, so we can gain their business.

Peak Alarm is not the low price leader although we do things correctly. After individuals or companies have poor experiences with companies that do not offer the same quality of installations or service we hope they will allow Peak to provide those services.

I explained that there are companies that provide services for less money and Jerry understands this and he said those type of companies normally don’t continue to operate like this because they run into issues. After 50 years we are still going strong. We pay taxes, hold the proper insurance, we train our people well and now we have five offices to serve our customers. Peak is the only local family owned alarm business that has both a UL listed Central Station to monitor alarms and we also have a licensed Guard and Patrol Division.

I told him that was what was happening with some of the current security companies right now and one of them has been sued in over 30 states and has thousands of complaints on the Better Business Bureau. Many offer free equipment although they charge more per month than we do and they also lock people into 5 year contracts. Up front it seems like a good deal because of the word free but you end up paying almost double over time.

Jerry is willing to sit down with his employees and listen to them and often he will come into our office and greet each one of us. Having the owner be interested in us makes for a very good working environment.

Jerry Howe comes into work everyday and has an attitude of trying to help his employees and customers.