FAQs

Alarm Response Services

  1. Why would I need Provident response? Won't the Police respond to my alarm?
  2. What happens if you don't respond within the guaranteed response time?
  3. Do I have to give you my keys if I want Response service?
  4. How do you take care of my house keys?
  5. How many vehicles do you have on the road?
  6. I'm just two doors outside of your 5 Minute Response zone. Can't you provide the service for us?
  7. What is your five minute response zone?

Pricing

  1. Why are your monitoring rates more expensive than other security firms?
  2. Other companies include a few free responses with their monthly monitoring rates. Why don't you?
  3. Can I get a better monitoring rate if I use you for my Vancouver and Whistler homes?

Installation Services

  1. Other companies say that they will takeover my existing alarm system for free. Why does Provident charge for that?
  2. I got a quote from another company and Provident's installation quote is much more expensive. Why?
  3. Can Provident work with my Automation System provider?
  4. Does Provident provide installation services outside of Vancouver & Whistler?

About Provident

  1. Is Provident a franchise or dealer model?

Monitoring

  1. Why is BLINK better than cellular back-up?

Whistler

  1. I like to support local Whistler companies, not another company from Vancouver.

Concierge Services

  1. How does concierge service billing work?

Alarm Response Services

Why would I need Provident response? Won't the Police respond to my alarm?
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In Vancouver, like almost every other city in North America, there is a city by-law that dictates under which circumstances the Police may be dispatched to a burglar alarm.

The Vancouver bylaw (#7111 section 27) states that BEFORE an alarm company is allowed to call the Police it MUST contact a property reference.

This means that before any alarm company is allowed to request a dispatch, they must actually get a hold of their client, or emergency contact. If noone can be reached, the Police cannot be called. Irrespective of how long it takes.

Once dispatched, an alarm signal is considered by the Vancouver Police as a Priority 3 call… to which the average response time is 2 hours and 6 minutes.

The fundamental issue with this is that this process legislates that every alarm must be assumed false until proven real. Of course, by the time that you are able to prove an alarm real (by verifying a burglary), the crime is long over.

So… the Police will respond, but it might take several hours…. and there is no guaranteed service level.

 

What happens if you don't respond within the guaranteed response time?
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If we are not at your door within our guaranteed response time, you do not pay for the response.

We take our response time promise seriously. We’ve built our entire company around providing the industry’s fastest response times and we understand how important it is to do what we say we’re going to do.

Our goal each day is to respond to at least 85% of all alarms within our guaranteed response time.

We have put tremendous effort into perfecting our dispatch and predictive scheduling systems to ensure that we are not wasting any second between the time your alarm trips and we get to your premises.

The best way to learn how we can do what we say we can do is to come for a tour of our Kerrisdale Operations Centre. We’d be happy to show you around ad we’re sure that once you see how much thought, engineering and effort has gone into our response service, you’ll know that you are in the best hands.

Do I have to give you my keys if I want Response service?
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No. It is not a requirement that we hold keys. However, keys help us provide a much more complete service in that we can physically inspect every zone that is in alarm. Keys are particularly helpful when we respond to flood detection devices or to smoke alarms when the Fire Department requires access. Allowing us to hold keys can be the difference between the Fire Department breaking down a client’s door or not.

How do you take care of my house keys?
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We take the responsibility of holding the keys to your home very seriously.

In order to maximize security, we do not use lockboxes installed at client’s homes or business. Instead, we’ve developed an innovative control system for managing the more than 10,000 house keys we have been entrusted with.

Every client key is stored in an envelope and labled with a unique numerical code. The client’s name, address or any other identifier is not listed. Every time the key is used, the numeric code is changed.

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How many vehicles do you have on the road?
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We don’t disclose how many vehicles we have on the road at any given time for security reasons. What we can tell you though, is that we exceed our goal of responding to at least 85% of alarm signals within five minutes every day. We do that by ensuring that we have the right number of Response Team members in the right places, at the right time. That’s no small task. If you’re interested to learn more, please give us a call to set up a tour, we’d be happy to show you the process… we just won’t say how many Responders we have on shift right now.

I'm just two doors outside of your 5 Minute Response zone. Can't you provide the service for us?
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Unfortunately, no.

We’ve learned that in order to honour our immediate response guarantee, we have to be very restrictive about what the geographic boundaries of our response zone are.

While we look forward to expanding our response zones in the future, we cannot provide 5 minute response anywhere outside of our defined zones.

We can, however, provide very effective services like Provident Verify that will provide significantly better protection than a typical alarm.

Pricing

Why are your monitoring rates more expensive than other security firms?
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We’re a little more expensive because we provide a completely unique service.

While many security companies will offer monitoring for between $25 and $40, Provident services start at $79.

We charge more because we do more.

We are the only company in North America that will guarantee a 5 Minute Response.

We also own and operate our own central monitoring station in Kerrisdale where we only monitor our own clients accounts.

Most other security firms charge less because they do not offer response, or if they do, they do not offer any response time guarantees. Most firms also contract the monitoring out to 3rd party companies.

With Provident, you pay a little more, but you get a lot more in return. You also know exactly who you are dealing with and never have to worry about your private information being shared with other companies.

Other companies include a few free responses with their monthly monitoring rates. Why don't you?
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We charge for every response that we perform within our guaranteed response time. If we’re late, you do not pay.

While other companies may offer ‘included’ responses, they will not offer any response time guarantees. They may also not even have a truly 24 hour service, but instead rely on an on-call service.

We’ve priced our services in a manner that we know is fair and does not cut any operational corners.

Our team is on patrol on the Westside, and Whistler, 24 hours a day. Providing immediate response is the core of our business, not an add-on. We take it seriously and we know that a remarkable service cannot be reliably provided for less than what we charge.

Can I get a better monitoring rate if I use you for my Vancouver and Whistler homes?
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Sorry. No. We’ve priced our services to be fair for both us and our clients. We have many commercial clients with dozens of locations and we charge the same rates for each store. That keeps it fair and allows us to maintain our unmatched service guarantees.

While we can’t discount our rates, we can provide the very best level of service for each of your properties, no matter where they are.

Installation Services

Other companies say that they will takeover my existing alarm system for free. Why does Provident charge for that?
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The difference between simply re-directing an existing alarm system to a new monitoring provider, and doing a full inspection and test is big.

While it is possible to simply enter a new phone number for an existing alarm to send signals can be done in less than 10 minutes, Provident will only take on a system after testing every single zone to ensure that everything is working properly and communicating as it should.

Often, we find errors in existing systems that would have been costly for clients in the event of a burglary. Things like disabled zones or zones programmed incorrectly that the client was never aware of (and never would be until an incident happened). We ensure that your system is operating in peak condition and that everything has been tested and confirmed on both your end, and in our Kerrisdale Operations Centre.

Depending on the size of the system, that can take a little bit of time. We charge reasonable rates for this service, and do not cut corners on an initial account setup.

I got a quote from another company and Provident's installation quote is much more expensive. Why?
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We’ve heard that before. However, when we actually sit down with a client to review the differences between our proposal and another company’s we typically find that our costs are very competitive once an ‘apples to apples’ comparison is made. Because we know that the only reason for installing an alarm in the first place is to generate an immediate response, we design systems with that in mind. Often, that means that we are recommending much more equipment than a ‘bare-bones’ system a competitor might suggest. Once we compare the actual equipment, Provident is typically recommending a much higher quality level.

A motion detector is not a motion detector. There is a big cost difference between going with the cheapest unit available and going with a product that we know will work and are willing to stand behind. While we know that our monitoring rates are more expensive than other companies, our installation costs typically are not… it’s just sometimes difficult to see that at first glance.

At the end of the day, we want our clients to have a professionally installed system that will do what it is supposed to. We’re happy to sit down with you and discuss all of the details so that you can compare for yourself and see what you are paying for.

Can Provident work with my Automation System provider?
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Absolutely, we do that all the time.

Our experience has been that the earlier in the design process we are included, the smoother the final installation and programming will be. If you are looking for an AV or Automation specialist, we partner with some of the industry’s best and would be happy to refer. If you already have a company that you would like to work with, we’re happy to work with them as well. We’re easy.

Does Provident provide installation services outside of Vancouver & Whistler?
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Yes.

We look after many clients vacation homes throughout British Columbia and the United States. Our Technical Team is licensed to install systems throughout BC. For properties further away, we work with other service providers who can provide the ‘hands-on’ installation work while we take care of the monitoring and system management. Give us a call to talk about the options.

 

About Provident

Is Provident a franchise or dealer model?
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No. We’re 100% independent. We started in Kerrisdale in 1996 and have been growing on our own since then. Unlike many security firms, we are not affiliated in any way with any other company.

We’re proud to be an independent company.

Monitoring

Why is BLINK better than cellular back-up?
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BLINK is the best choice for alarm system communication because it is the fastest and most secure. Also, unlike cellular service, BLINK uses a mesh network so that there is no single point of failure in the network (as opposed to cellular where if a single tower stops working, cell coverage drops). Another benefit is that BLINK is a private network that is owned and managed by Provident exclusively as opposed to a cellular back-up system that utilizes a 3rd party cellular network over which we have no control. In areas where BLINK is available, it is the best choice.

Click on the video below to see how it works:

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Whistler

I like to support local Whistler companies, not another company from Vancouver.
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Provident is not only a true, local Whistler company, we’re the ONLY Whistler security company that does not contract anything out.

Our office is in Function Junction and our team are driving our bright yellow Provident Whistler trucks 24/7.

Every other Whistler company either contracts out their monitoring to 3rd party monitoring providers or has it done in another province. In the case of response service, our team is on duty and on patrol 24 hours a day… as opposed to using an on-call service where someone is getting paged in the middle of the night to wake up and respond to an alarm. That makes a big difference in an emergency and Provident is uniquely positioned as Whistler’s only truly full service, local, security company.

Concierge Services

How does concierge service billing work?
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Concierge service is based on time spent on any particular task. If you need something immediately (such as racing to the drycleaners to pick up your suit), we treat that like an alarm response and bill for any additional time. If it’s something less urgent, we simply bill in five minute increments.

Our clients have used our Concierge service for everything from delivering beer to setting the PVR to record the Grammys.