Myths & Realities about Keyholding | Insight

Is a Professional Keyholding and Alarm Response Company Necessary?

No, you can attend to activated intruder and fire alarms at your premises for yourself!

That being said, your ability to check the building on your own doesn’t render keyholding and alarm response services useless. A security company is trained and equipped to handle a potential break-in, and they are much better versed in fire safety in the event of an emergency when an alarm has been triggered as well as being available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Are you available 24/7?

Suppose you don’t live near your business premises, and you don’t want to burden employees with the responsibility of keyholding and alarm response. In that case, a security company is certainly the best route to go down.

Does a Keyholding and Alarm Response Service Prevent Break-Ins?

No, our services involve holding the keys to your premises and being the number one callout in the event of an alarm activation. The keys are kept in a secure location in case of emergencies.

Our service takes the pressure off your staff or having to decide a call-out rota. There is always the danger of a threat when attending an alarm activation, so many business owners prefer a security company to visit the scene first. On receiving an activation, we will stay at the premises until it is made secure again, and if required, wait for the emergency services to arrive, and deal with any incidents that may have occurred.

Keyholding is a response service that is shared with other customers. If you are looking for a protection service, then a dedicated provision such as manned guarding or dog handling is required.

Can The Service Be Costly?

When it comes to business security, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a costly affair. In fact, the majority of our clients we meet are surprised by how little it can cost to deliver a keyholding & alarm response service.

On average, our clients spend approx. £500 per year on keyholding and alarm response call-out fees. That’s just £9.62 per week for the peace of mind our services can provide.

Can You Attend Within 20 Minutes?

Whether it’s the first time you’ve used a professional keyholding and alarm response company or you’re a seasoned pro, it always helps to understand what happens ‘behind the scenes’. Our job is to get to you as quickly as we can, but sometimes we have to manage our clients’ expectations, especially under exceptional circumstances.

The service we provide is a “shared service” which is why we’re able to provide our services at such a reasonable price. Exceptional circumstances can impact the service we’re able to provide, but there can be many reasons for this and are outside of our control, such as, we must stick to speed limits and can sometimes get stuck in traffic. We also have to deal with delays due to weather conditions and even vehicle breakdowns, so even though we’d like to get to you as fast as we can, it can take sometimes take a little longer than planned. Our Mobile Patrol Officers may also be dealing with an incident on another site that may delay their response as we would never leave a site in a vulnerable state.

Our Mobile Patrol Officers are on call 24 hours a day 365 days a year and work incredibly hard to respond as quickly as they can. Our average response time is just 38 minutes.

Not Being Left in Safe Hands

Many clients we speak to worry about who will be tasked with looking after their business in the event of an alarm activation. As an SIA Approved Contractor with SIA licensed security officers you can rest assured that your business security is in safe hands.

Not only have we retained our approved SIA status for the 16th year in a row, but our staff are extensively trained, screened and DBS checked too. With a strong retention rate, our staff become familiar faces to our clients, getting to know their business just as well as ours.