It was a Friday night. Jim and Susan were out with friends. They were having a great time. Eventually, they realized that it was time to head home, so they got in their car and headed back for the night.
When they arrived at home, Jim and Susan were shocked to see their house was a mess. Their belongings were strewn across the floor and a window was open on the side of the house.
As you may have guessed, Jim and Susan’s house had been burglarized.
They quickly surveyed the house to determine what was taken; and it turned out that electronics, jewelry, silver, sports memorabilia and even one of their classic cars were missing. Other items were damaged – such as furniture, kitchen appliances and other fixtures throughout the house. The loss was substantial – perhaps ranging into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Jim and Susan promptly called the police. While waiting for authorities to arrive, Jim and Susan had a lot of questions. They wondered why their alarm system did not detect the intruders. Were the motion detectors not working on the first floor? Why didn’t the equipment detect the intrusion through the first floor window? What happened?
Meanwhile, across the country, John sat at his cubicle. In front of him were multiple screens, and a headset connected him wirelessly to a phone.
John was employed by the company responsible for monitoring the alarm system installed in Jim and Susan’s home. He was relatively new to the job and tired after a long week. He did not know Jim or Susan, nor was he familiar with their account.
A call came in to the central monitoring station and was directed to John. It was Jim and Susan. John advised them that they were on a recorded line. They provided him with their account information and passcode. They informed him of the burglary and began to pose a series of questions to him as he began to examine their account…
Let’s pause here.
How to Communicate with Victimized Customers
Maybe you own or manage an alarm company; or perhaps you own or manage a central station, or possibly, you are an in-house lawyer. Regardless of your title, you should be concerned about the discussion that is about to happen between John and Jim and Susan.
Indeed, you should be concerned about any discussion between your employees and your customers in the aftermath of an alleged failed alarm response.
Customers who have suffered a loss are angry. They want answers. They want information. They want empathy…and sometimes they even want contrition.
By the same token, employees and central monitoring personnel want to be helpful. They are probably empathetic with the couple who has just been victimized; however, the employee should also be trained to protect the company. This requires that they balance customer care with the need to avoid making uninformed admissions that hurt the company.
Employees should not be quick to admit error on behalf of the company, but they should promise a full investigation.
The company should provide training and adopt written standards and procedures for handling alleged alarm failures and other actual incidents. There should be a reporting protocol and internal forms specifically for this purpose. The standards and procedures adopted by the company should provide for escalation where these types of calls can be routed to specially trained staff (and maybe even to a legal team).
I have handled actual litigation matters where employees have made problematic statements to customers following an alarm incident. Saying, for example, that a particular device “never works” or that “the alarm should have sounded” is unhelpful and often misinformed.
When talking to the burglary victims, John should be careful not to jump to conclusions about the installation, servicing and monitoring of the alarm. He should avoid detailed comments on the nature of the devices installed, where they were installed, whether they were armed or disarmed, whether the monitoring service was properly performed, etc.
Regardless of what John tells them, Jim and Susan are of course entitled to receive copies of all of their account records, including the full monitoring history and other documents related to their account. They might very well get to the bottom of what went wrong – whether John provides detailed information or not; however, an employee who has hurriedly gleaned information from an account screen should not be communicating that information to the customer without first allowing for a meaningful investigation by the company.
Back to the Story...
As it turns out, the burglars who victimized Jim and Susan did not trip any alarm because Jim and Susan neglected to arm their motion detectors that night.
If John could not determine this readily during his call with Jim and Susan, he may have suggested that the alarm malfunctioned – which would have been incorrect, and John would have implicated the company and emboldened Jim and Susan without any basis.
Thankfully, most of the stolen items were recovered and the damaged items were repaired or replaced by insurance. Jim and Susan now know that arming their motion detectors is an important security measure. They even ordered additional devices – such as glass-break sensors – to better protect their home.
Just as Jim and Susan are better prepared, so, too, must you and your employees be prepared. For the benefit of your company, be sure to train your employees, adopt sound policies and procedures, and be ready to handle these sensitive customer inquiries appropriately and in anticipation of a full and complete investigation by your legal team.
Timothy J. Pastore, Esq., is a Partner in the New York office of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads LLP (www.mmwr.com), where he is Vice-Chair of the Litigation Department. Before entering private practice, Mr. Pastore was an officer and Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the U.S. Air Force and a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice. Reach him at (212) 551-7707 or by e-mail at [email protected].
