Customers expect cellular backup to work in a power outage? Discussing my Tuesday

Last Tuesday I had a service call in a suburb outside Columbus where the power had been out for six hours. The homeowner was upset their cellular alarm panel had gone silent, but the cell tower near them was on generator power and still broadcasting. Their panel had a battery backup, but it died after four hours because it was three years old and had never been load tested. In my experience, most homeowners assume cellular equals bulletproof, and they don't realize a dead panel battery kills the whole system. The other side of this is we as installers often skip the honest conversation about battery life because it feels like a sale killer. I've seen guys quote a $60 battery swap and lose the job to a cheaper bid. So my question is, do you all schedule regular battery checks into your maintenance contracts, or are you just waiting for the phone to stop ringing at 2am? I'm curious if charging for testing upfront has changed anyone's business. Take this with a grain of salt, but I've started pushing a flat $40 quarterly checkup and it's cut my emergency callouts by about half.

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lunah8615d ago

Reading through some fire alarm forums last week and they had the same problem with their cell dialers. Battery testing is the thing everybody skips until it bites them. I do quarterly checks on my own system now, just a simple load test with a multimeter, takes five minutes. The flat fee idea makes sense too, because people will pay for peace of mind way easier than they'll pay for a 2am panic visit. My uncle runs a small shop and he started doing a $50 annual "battery and backup health" check, and he said it turned into repeat customers who actually call him back for real upgrades later. Seems like the upfront honesty about battery life is what separates the good bids from the ones that lose the job.