Every AV company has lost a project because a competitor offered the AV system at a lower cost. It’s completely understandable that price is a major decision-making factor. However, the truth is that an installation price often reflects system quality. If ABC Company’s hourly rate is $125/hour and Company XYZ is $80/hour, you can expect that ABC will provide a higher quality installation. If XYZ could charge $125/hour for their poorer installation quality, they would charge it. But customers are unwilling to pay for poorer quality at $125/hour, so XYZ is forced to decrease their labor rate or they will not receive additional projects.
How is a potential client to know which integrators have quality reputations and which ones have poor reputations? Perhaps requesting references from their three most recent projects. Every company has at least three good references from the last few years, but if you narrow it down to their most recent installations, you can determine the current quality of their AV installations. AV personnel move from company to company, so a company with a good reputation two years ago does not necessarily mean they have a good reputation in the last six months. We always say we don’t mind losing on price when it’s to one of the firms with a good reputation who we know will do a good job for the customer. But the customer really loses out when a lower quality competitor wins on lowest price when the customer expects a high quality installation.
An article from Commercial Integrator (industry magazine) writes that a number of low quality integrators are actually hurting the reputation of the entire AV field.
Synergy prides itself on quality and reliability. If these attributes rank highly in your decision-making criteria, we hope to work with you.
