Choosing a Supplier

Every supplier will show you a device that raises an alarm. The differences are in what happens next and what happens when things go wrong.

When choosing a supplier also depends on reliable work records, see the platform can support time, attendance and workload review without being treated as the emergency response itself. Compare any workflow with ICO employment guidance and keep alarm ownership, escalation and dispatch responsibilities explicit.

The monitoring questions

Who answers, where, and at what hours?

What is the contracted time to answer an alarm, and is it measured?

What are they authorised to do without contacting you first?

How do they hold your escalation tree, and how is it updated?

What happens if they cannot reach anyone on your list?

A supplier who cannot answer these precisely is selling hardware with a call centre attached.

The device questions

Battery life in real use, not in standby.

What happens at low battery — who is told, and how far in advance?

Coverage: which networks, and does it roam between them?

Can it be worn comfortably for a full shift, and by whom? Ask for samples and let workers wear them for a week.

What is the false alarm rate on fall detection at your work type, and can sensitivity be tuned?

The data questions

What position data is collected, and when — continuously or on alarm?

Can continuous tracking be disabled?

Is audio capture activation-only?

Retention, per category.

Who at the supplier can see it, and is access logged?

These matter more here than in most systems because the data describes a person's day and a client's home.

The trial

Real workers, real routes, four weeks.

Include your worst coverage location and your longest shift.

Raise a genuine test alarm at three in the morning and time everything.

Count false alarms.

Let the workers report on comfort and discretion, not managers.

Red flags

A demonstration that ends at the alert screen.

No contracted answer time.

Continuous tracking presented as a feature rather than as an option.

No answer on the false alarm rate.

And any supplier who cannot tell you what happens when the whole escalation tree is unreachable, which is the situation that eventually occurs.

The contract

Answer times, with evidence.

Notice before changes to monitoring arrangements.

Data deletion on termination, confirmed.

Device replacement terms, which at scale is a running cost.

And an exit route for the data, so a change of supplier does not lose your incident history.

Running the procurement

Write the requirement from the response chain, not from a feature list.

Answer times, escalation handling, coverage at your locations, wearability, data configuration.

Which produces a specification that suppliers answer differently from each other, rather than one where every response is yes.

And include the workers in the evaluation, because the device they will not wear is a nil-return whatever it scores on paper.

References worth taking

Ask for a customer in your sector and your geography, and ask them specific things.

How long does an alarm take to answer at three in the morning?

What is the false alarm rate on your work?

Has the supplier changed anything without telling you?

And would you buy it again?

A supplier reluctant to provide a reference in your sector is telling you something.

What to watch in year two

Prices rising at renewal, which is normal, and service quality falling, which is not.

Monitoring contracts sold on and operated by a different company, which happens and which should require notification.

Firmware updates that change detection behaviour, which alter the false alarm rate without any change on your side.

And the account manager disappearing, which is usually the first visible sign of the above.

Exit planning

Agreed at the start, because it is unobtainable later.

Your incident history, in a readable format.

Device ownership: bought or leased, and what happens to them.

Data deletion, confirmed in writing.

And a transition period where both systems run, because a gap between suppliers is a gap in the protection.

The device trial, in detail

Four weeks, not a demonstration day.

Give devices to the workers who will carry them, not to managers, and include at least one person on each of your difficult routes.

Ask them to record three things: whether they wore it all shift, whether they could activate it discreetly, and whether it got in the way.

Then count the false activations, which will tell you more about the product than any specification sheet.

And raise at least two genuine test alarms from the worst coverage locations you have.

Comparing quotes honestly

Per-user monthly pricing looks simple and hides the differences.

Ask what is included: monitoring, replacement devices, SIM costs, the portal, training, and the annual review.

And what is not: most quotes exclude device replacement after the first year, which at scale is the difference between two suppliers that looked identical.

Build a three-year total, because that is the period over which you will actually live with the choice.

The question that sorts the market

"What happens when nobody on our escalation list answers?"

A supplier with a real answer has thought about the failure case.

One who says it has not happened has told you they do not measure it.

And the best answer is a stated policy — emergency services are called after a defined interval — which is what you are actually buying.