August 4, 2010
11 comments
On-Line Alarm Company Reviews: Click and Compare
Of all the benefits of the Internet Age, on-line reviews have to be one of the biggest boons for today’s shoppers. It’s not just your neighbors and co-workers who can weigh on the plumber or exercise bike you are considering – it’s the global community, some (or many) of whom will have direct experience with the provider or product that you are checking out.
Some of the popular sites (like Yelp.com and ePinions.com) have starred rating systems, and users can apply a 1-5 score along with a detailed description of their experience. Other sites are decidedly negative, such as ripoffreport.com and complaints.com – go to these if you want to cut to the chase for bad news before you buy. Just type in the name, and grab a chair – it may not be pretty.
And of course, there is our friend the BBB. Many folks don’t realize that a business must pay the BBB to be accredited, but that does guarantee a good rating. Check some of FrontPoint’s competitors, and you’ll see! The BBB provides the rating for companies based on age, complaint history, response to complaints, and other topics. It’s a pretty complicated – so here is a link to the ratings explanation page on the BBB site:
http://www.bbb.org/business-reviews/ratings/
For instance, FrontPoint Security has an A rating. We should have an A+, based on every measure except our age. In other words, if we were listed for longer with BBB, we would be an A+ today!
So, shop ‘til you drop, and read those reviews, whether it’s about alarm systems or diet supplements or big screen TV’s – you will find a ton of useful information from your fellow consumers. And if you find a bad review or two sprinkled among a long list of 5-stars, remember two things:
1) No company is perfect, though some come close!
2) It is easy for a competitor to place a bad review – so one bad review needs to be placed in context with the rest.
Here are the links to the sites mentioned above:
www.epinions.com
One final comment: you won’t find FrontPoint Security at either of the last two “nasty” sites! Here's a link to some home security reviews of FrontPoint.