If it won't wake up my neighbors, it's useless.

[KaeZoo]

A few months ago we installed an alarm into a customer's car. Now, when you buy a car alarm at a store like ours, most of the price you're paying is for the labor of installing it. We don't sell alarms that don't include installation; they're not generally a DIY item.

Several weeks after the installation the customer called me back and wanted the alarm siren to be adjusted louder. Well, there's no way to do that. The arming/disarming chirps are set at a lower volume by default, and you can override that, but when the alarm is going off, it's automatically at highest volume. I explain this to the customer, and she tells me it's not loud enough.

Her beef is that when she's upstairs in her apartment, and her alarm is going off in the parking lot, she can barely hear it. If she was asleep and someone was breaking into her car, it wouldn't even wake her up! It's a really crappy alarm, if it won't even wake up an entire apartment building when it's going off in the parking lot. If the car owner can't hear the alarm going off, then the alarm is basically useless, isn't it? She's going to return it and get all her money refunded if we can't find a way to make it louder.

I explain that we can add additional sirens, which might make it louder. We also have paging devices available, that will page you up to a mile or so away when the alarm sounds. More expensive alarms have systems like that built into the remotes. Of course, all these options are unacceptable because they would result in her, the unhappy customer, having to pay more money.

I tried to explain that we can't guarantee before installation that a random customer in a random apartment block can hear her alarm in her car parked an unknown distance away, but I don't think I got through to her.

On the other hand, she hasn't called back again, so maybe she figured out that an alarm can be a theft deterrent, even if the vehicle owner can't hear it.

[pbmods]

Or maybe, once she realized that you weren't going to give her something for free, she gave up.

[Misanthropical]

Maybe, she figured her neighbors would all be cheering for the person taking her car, if her alarm is too loud.

[Gurndigarn]

On the other hand, she hasn't called back again, so maybe she figured out that an alarm can be a theft deterrent, even if the vehicle owner can't hear it.

Or she realized that those things have so many false alarms, nobody pays any attention to them.

[Imogene]

A few months ago we installed an alarm into a customer's car. Now, when you buy a car alarm at a store like ours, most of the price you're paying is for the labor of installing it. We don't sell alarms that don't include installation; they're not generally a DIY item.
*snip*
She's going to return it and get all her money refunded if we can't find a way to make it louder.

So, let me get this straight... she paid you mostly for the cost of installing the alarm. In other words, physical labor. And she wants a refund and for the thing to be taken out? In other words, more physical labor? Tell her: I can take it out, but you'll be paying me for the cost of labor for me to do so.

Not to mention: How does she know she can't hear the alarm from her apartment? Did she have someone set it off just to see if she could hear it?

[Bliss]

I can take it out, but you'll be paying me for the cost of labor for me to do so.

Reminds me of the great Gord, he installed a normal chip on game consoles, not the version that lets you play copies though because it undermined his own bussiness , he explained this to idiots, but a moron always would miss the fact, when they came back to bitch about the "defective" mod chip, and ask for a refund, he'd offer a refund only for the price of the chip, not the labour, and aslo asked for labour to remove it.

Gord was my god.

Not to mention: How does she know she can't hear the alarm from her apartment? Did she have someone set it off just to see if she could hear it?

Also you could mention to her that cheap alarms, specially the speaker which is the one producing the tune (in most cases tune is in the siren, not the alarm's brain, siren receives just uninterrupted 12Vdc and sings it's internal song), are so common that if she heard it, she couldn't know if it was her car or somebody's else anyhow without looking at it (to look for flashing lights)... only way around it, is.. once again, to purchase a more expensive and exclusive model.

I wonder why people expect gold at the price of coal.

[CanadaGirl]

Not to mention: How does she know she can't hear the alarm from her apartment? Did she have someone set it off just to see if she could hear it?

My parents do that with every vehicle they've ever bought, that had an alarm that is. We'd all be out in the driveway, dad would turn the alarm on, and then mom would pull on the door handle so the alarm would go off. I think they did it to see how loud it was, what exactly would happen and to memorize the sound incase it ever went off.

[KaeZoo]

The alarms have a different chirp when you disarm them and the alarm's been set off since it was armed. So I think it was set off one time and she hadn't noticed, and after that she started experimenting.

I thought too late of asking her whether it would be useless to arm her alarm when she goes shopping. After all, she's not going to hear the alarm when she's in the mall, so it must be useless, right?

Our registers automatically separate the labor from the alarm price when the alarm is purchased. So a $200 alarm will show on the receipt as $50 alarm, $150 installation. It's a good deal for the customer because only the $50 is taxable. There's a disclaimer on the work order that says labor is not refundable, but it's on the back and no customer has ever read it. The few times a customer's wanted an alarm or remote start pulled and returned, the managers have caved and they've gotten a full refund. Luckily this lady was past our return period in any case.