An office manager asks how much it costs to cut four keys. What has actually happened is that somebody left without returning theirs, nobody knows how many copies exist, and the cleaning company has a key that opens the server room as well as the front door.
She is asking about cutting. What she needs is to know who can open what.
Step 1: ask what the keys are for
Front door, internal offices, a store, a server room, a gate. The answer reveals whether this is a cutting job or a system conversation.
Step 2: ask how many people hold keys
And whether anybody knows. Most businesses cannot answer this, and realising it is what starts the real project.
Step 3: ask what happens when someone leaves
If the answer is that keys are handed back and hoped for, explain what a restricted or managed system does differently. That is the whole sales argument and it makes itself.
Step 4: explain master key systems plainly
Different keys opening defined groups of doors, with a master for the manager and a grand master where needed. Businesses assume this is expensive and complicated, and for a small office it is neither.
Step 5: explain restricted keys
Keys that cannot be copied without authorisation, held against a named authority list. This is the single most useful thing to explain to a business that has just lost track of its keys.
Step 6: separate mechanical from electronic
Fobs, cards, codes and app-based access have different costs, different failure modes and different administration. Publishing what you offer and what each suits prevents an enquiry for the wrong thing.
Step 7: explain what happens in a power cut
Electronic access needs a stated answer about fail-safe and fail-secure behaviour, battery backup and manual override. Businesses ask, and a vague answer loses the job.
Step 8: address fire and escape requirements
Access control interacts with escape routes and fire arrangements. Saying that this is designed in, and pointing to the relevant requirements, distinguishes a serious installer.
Step 9: publish what you survey
Number of doors, door types, existing hardware, who needs access to what and any existing system. A survey that produces a written schedule is worth charging for.
Step 10: explain ongoing administration
Adding and removing users, issuing keys, replacing lost credentials and who manages it. This is the ongoing relationship and the recurring revenue.
Step 10b: explain what happens when a key is lost
The moment a business loses a key is when it discovers what its system costs. Setting out what a loss means under each arrangement, from replacing a single cylinder to rekeying a whole suite, and roughly what each runs to, is the clearest argument for specifying properly at the start rather than after an incident on a Friday night.
Step 11: contracts are the better business
Scheduled maintenance and a standing arrangement behave like the model in commercial pest contracts for restaurants and warehouses.
Step 12: consumer work continues alongside
It is covered in key cutting and access questions customers ask daily and lockout calls and what a locksmith site should say, and capture at any hour is described in an AI receptionist for pest control.
Getting started
Publish what systems you offer, what a survey involves and how administration works, then capture door counts and access needs at any hour. SpideyChat for home services businesses answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.