Why it is not just about price when buying intercom, CCTV, Alarm, or Access Control Systems.

Firstly, let me qualify the above statement – there are systems you can buy which are low end and meant to be self installed.  You can find these on ebay or Gumtree and they are fine for what they do. They are not the systems we sell and there is a reason for that – more later.

The systems we sell are professional systems normally supplied and installed by a trained professional.  They are designed to be installed and configured by someone who is trained on these systems and understands the technology.

So why are we selling them to the general public then?  Simple – We provide the expertise and knowledge when required to the home owners technician or electrician allowing the home owner or business to have a professional grade system at a reasonable price.  There are other sellers of the same equipment who won’t provide the same technical support or product knowledge – it is not priced into the sale and they don’t understand the product. We know this is true because we get calls every day from people asking for help.  Buyer beware!

Recently a customer came to us because they couldn’t get their new interom system to power up.  The reason? A well known large retail reseller had sold the wrong PoE switches with the intercom and no power supply with the door station.  Why?  They don’t have the product knowledge.  We did help the customer in this case and they purchased CCTV from us as a result.

At Active Online we love what we do.  Our background is in IT, Telecommunications, Security, and consulting so we understand these systems from a design and operations perspective i.e. systems, not just individual components. 

Our philosophy is to:

1. 1. 1. guide our customers towards the best solution for their requirements,
      2. ensure they have all the components they need for installation and configuration,
      3. guide and inform throughout the installation and configuration process, and
      4. be available for support during the lifetime of the system.

We also offer a pre-configuration service designed to streamline system installation of intercom systems 

Compare that to other sellers and we are the Gold Standard in this industry.

Why the systems we sell, and not the cheaper ones on ebay and Gumtree?

Many of our customers come to us after miserable experiences with cheaper systems.  Typical experiences are bad quality video, unreliable operation, no upgrade path, no replacement spares, no support, does not work with other systems etc.  The owners are forced to find parts (video recorder, camers, door station, monitor…) on ebay or Gumtree because the seller has gone or the next model is not backward compatible.  They may have a working system but can’t make changes or undo a change because they don’t know how.  Simple issues like – The NBN was installed and now my system doesn’t work these are things we hear everyday.  There is no support and they are left high and dry.

Our systems are supported by us in the first instance and we escalate problems we can’t fix to the manufacturer.  We always have a solution and we won’t fob you off with excuses.  If you are our customer we maintain a relationship with you because that is what we would want from our purchases.  We understand that this level of support is not viable with cheap systems as support is a cost to any business.  One hour of support costs the same no matter the sale price of the equipment.  When calculated as an overhead it is unsustainable if the systems being sold are not inherently reliable.  Poor equipment equals poor support otherwise your business goes broke.

We know there are some (many actually) who will take a chance on a good price deal in the hope it works for them.  As long as you factor in the sale as a termination of the relationship then you won’t be disappointed.  If however, you are not confident in the installation and configuration ability of your installer you may want to consider other options.  Why not contact us and see what we can do?