SSAIB VS NACOSS

[Paul Giles]

We are an SSAIB approved company with certificate of merit etc.

The reason for this post is the lack of support and feed back we get from them has made us enquire about NSI gold.

We have the application pack and are seriously considering it, especially with the amount of electricians joining the SSAIB.

Has anyone made the move or indeed left the NSI to join SSAIB??

Look forward to hearing from you all.

Paul

[morph]

I understand totally how you feel the company that I was a director of were SSAIB approved and can certainly say the level of support was very limited. Training services were poor, help with getting Insurers to accept your companies installations was limited. Technical advice was limited and you couldn't help getting the feeling that maybe the people that were giving the advice were out of touch with the day to day running of an alarm company.

One area that I found that they were very good at was making sure you had paid their fees and bills on time

Generally I feel that the SSAIB have worked hard to beat the them and us scenario of the old Nacoss days but in there efforts to be the biggest Inspectorate they are falling down on the intial values that made the organisation as popular as it was. Certainly for a new start company its far easier to join the Ssaib and again that is what makes it attractive.

Having said that the one area that I found that was very good was the "inspectors" generally ex installers with years of expierience not all been in business for themselves but there knowledge and support was excellent. Full marks to the Inspectors.

NSI I feel are far better as an inspectorate and certainly the level of support from them seems to be at a higher level(I certainly hope so as my company is apply shortly to join) They are more prominent in the industry and very good at keeping their installers informed about rules and changes to the industry. Again they seem to have no problems with the Insurance companies. They also have regional meetings of there approved installers which can only improve the dialogue between the inspectorate and installer.

One area that does concern me is that the inspectors are not expierienced installers simply suits with a list of compliances to mark an installation, if this is correct then I would say that they are missing the opportunity to pass on years of knowledge to a new company. NSI gold and silver schemes seem to address the problem of new start companies but does it go far enough, the initial cost for the silver scheme is still a lot of money and to some installers this may prove prohibitive.

There are several NSI installers on the forum and i would welcome some clarification of the points i have raised as to there validity as to NSI Procedures.

Neither the Inspectorates or Acpo make it easy for a new company to join our industry and until they realise that new companies will come and go then it is essentially going to be very tough for any new start to compete with established companies.

Generally with inspectorates you pay your money and get on with the job and have a % of your jobs checked every year and as far as support goes if you shout loud enough you will get it and if you say nothing you won't.

Theres no soft option to getting approved but SSAIB seem to be the easier of the two to get into, that said if you meet the standards of the SSAIB then you can join the NSI as they both supposedly inspect to the same criteria's.

Colin.

[Chris Teague]

Have worked for both NSI (NACOSS) & SSAIB firms, currently manage an SSAIB firm. (There's a similar forum somewhere in the trade section) Been inspected by both and have to say that standards of inspection / quality auditing are very similar. Both have equally helpful inspectors & support services.

Without disclosing the inspectorate, one firm I used to work for would always (& still does) send out its Technical Director prior to an inspection to carry out its own audit and would tidy any problems / non compliances up before the inspector had a chance to see them, hence would always pass with good marks and brag about it in their advertising. "Our last 8 inspections saw a Grade A every time" they say Big deal.

SSAIB or NSI would both find it hard to stop this sort of thing and its really rather sad some people have to do this don't you think?

I Agree with the earlier posting that SSAIB seem to have overcome the problems of them & us and I cannot remember the last time we had a problem in this respect with an Insurance Co.

The biggest problem I get with this line is one particular competitor NSI firm telling clients NSI are better. My specifications & company info now deal with this quite effectively and its no longer a problem for us.

A lot of our work comes from recommendation and I would say that any firm that is registered with either NSI or SSAIB has proven its worth to trade in the industry. The inspections are there to maintain standards and should be able to identify problems and put them right.

Having been self employed in the past offering Security as well as Telecom's, I'd say that it is difficult to make the decision to join one or the other inspectorates due to the costs involved. There are a lot of very good non registered installers out there who's quality is just as good some of the registered firms I've seen.

The most important thing to consider is that any registered / non registered firm offers competent specifications for its clients with quality installs / products and reliable after sales service.

[Paul Giles]

Thanks for your replies, been a great help.

paul