Do You Have Records of the Emergency Calls on Your Property?

Recording all emergency phone calls made from your property can both decrease your property management liability and increase your property safety. See how doing so can specifically benefit you.

As a property manager, you likely have some sort of emergency help phone on your property, whether it be an elevator help phone or emergency pool phones required by code or a number of various additional emergency phones throughout your property as a safety best practice measure. This means you’re off to a great start- occupant safety should be a top priority across the industry. Something less often accounted for, however, is not just the PRESENCE of an emergency phone to help ensure property safety, but HOW calls made from those emergency phones are handled.

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As a company responsible for emergency monitoring across all types of emergency phones, Kings III recommends having a means to digitally record all emergency calls made from your property as an essential item. Why is this such an important aspect of your property’s safety needs? We can break it down into three reasons.

The ability to prevent future emergencies

Once Kings III handles a call on your property and dispatches the appropriate help to the person in need, our next step is to always call you so that you can be aware of the situation at hand. Similar emergency monitoring companies may take similar protocol to inform you, but solely knowing what happened on the property does not always necessarily provide you with the information you need to know to determine if a change needs to be made on your end. If there is ever an unusual occurrence that takes place on your property, having the call recorded allows you to go back and listen to the details of what happened. In many instances, simply listening to the recorded call allows the property manager to pinpoint certain details or circumstances about their property that may have contributed to the emergency or worsened its condition. This allows them to make the appropriate reactive changes to their property in maintenance, hazard removal, etc. to help ensure the prevention of similar future emergencies.

The security of knowing property emergencies are appropriately handled

This goes back to what we said about the importance of HOW emergency phone calls are handled. As a property manager, you likely outsource your emergency phone monitoring in order to provide the dedication required of this type of role (and we would recommend doing so). With your occupants’ safety on the line, it is important to ensure that whoever is handling these emergency calls is doing it in an efficient, helpful and safe manner that will leave your occupants feeling like they got the help that they needed. Unfortunately, even in 911 call centers, these are not always the results that you get (See this appalling news story about a 911 operator arrested for hanging up on emergency calls).

So, what’s the best way to determine that emergency calls made on your property are handled the way that they are supposed to be? How about listening to some of these calls?! If you are ever concerned about the way that a property emergency was handled, having access to the recorded call can help you assess the situation and ensure that your occupants are receiving the kind of assistance that they need.

The support of factual-based information in the event of litigation

One of the responsibilities that a property manager must take on is the potential liability that may come with an emergency that takes place in their building. Too often, occupants take litigious action based on on a property accident and because of a lack of witness or evidence, the matter becomes a he-said she-said debacle. Being able to access emergency call records can take the obscurity out of such a situation. You as the property manager will be able to provide proof that the emergency call was taken and handled and that you provided emergency resources. Being able to access specific details about a situation at the time that it occurred will also help to prevent false claims that may be made by an occupant in an effort to gain.

As you can see, ultimately, keeping records of your property’s emergency calls protects both you and your occupants. Essentially, it can help bring you peace of mind, something rarely found in a job role that holds as many responsibilities as yours does. To learn more about how Kings III’s emergency monitoring services can help you, visit www.kingsiii.com.