April 2002 - Keybox, Keybox, Who’s has a Keybox?

President's Perspective

Spring Cleaning
Keybox, Keybox...
Who's got a Keybox?

Lynda Long
President
llong@coldwellbanker.com

  We're almost 5 years into our Supra Keybox system. If you're like me, you'd probably agree that this is one great system. Saves us time, provides us better tracking and a more secure entry system.

  But then, you already know this. What I'd like to do with this space is talk about something you probably did not know…

  We have over 16,000 keyboxes in our system. In mid March, we had just over 11,000 active listings in the MLS. If everyone of these properties has a keybox on it (which certainly isn't the case), we still have about 5,000 keyboxes left unused.

  Although many of you have an extra box or two around for your inventory needs, MANY of these boxes are simply unaccounted for. They are likely sitting in the bottom drawer of someone's desk, forgotten in a box in the garage, etc. And, more likely, many have gone out the door with a departing agent.

  Is this a problem? No, not really. Keyboxes which are lost and/or unaccounted for pose no security risk or threat to our system. However, it does have the potential of costing us more money.

  Our keybox vendor, Supra, holds us accountable for ALL boxes licensed to us. Technically our annual fee to Supra is based on a keypad/keybox ratio. Therefore it is to our financial advantage to maintain responsible control of our keybox inventory.

So, I'd like to solicit your assistance in helping us to do a little spring cleaning.

  Take a moment to consider your keybox inventory. Do you need/use as many keyboxes as you have? Is there any possibility that you may have ‘strategically placed' (i.e. misplaced) a box or two in a trunk, garage box, bottom desk drawer, etc.?

  If you have extra keyboxes you don't need, CBR will buy them back for $10. But you are also more than welcome to sell them to another CBR member – for whatever price you can negotiate.

  If you do sell/trade/give one of your keyboxes to another member, you do need to let us know. Please call Laura (see info below) and she can get you the transfer form. Our Keybox rules & regs specify that you must let us know within 24 hours of theft or loss.

  FYI – although you can sell your Keybox to someone else, you cannot sell/transfer your SuperKey. Those must be returned to CBR (we'll buy them back for $10 also) so we can reprogram them. Remember, a Keybox by itself poses no security risk, but we must all be more careful with our SuperKeys.

…which reminds me…Don't write/attach your PIN number to your SuperKey. If it's lost/stolen, having your PIN number attached to the SuperKey is an open invitation for someone to try to use it. And this is an unnecessary risk.

Daylight Savings Time
  And one last tidbit…when we change to daylight savings time on April 7, you don't have to do anything to your Keybox. Unless you change your access hours, the default access hours are 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily. The Keyboxes are programmed to adjust to daylight savings time and therefore, will keep your access hours the same (9a-9p).

Keybox Classes
  We've decided to offer Keybox training classes. Currently, members simply walk in, unscheduled, for training at anytime throughout the week. The problem with this is that, often times, members must wait in line for training, or our Keybox administrator. Laura Dodds, is not available. The other problem is that Laura was doing single training sessions 6x/day on average leaving her little time to return calls, support the product, etc.

  By implementing a class schedule, members are guaranteed a time when they can be assisted, and our staff can combine the training sessions using the additional time to support the system in other ways.

We'll begin daily training classes in mid April.

For questions/information regarding your SuperKey, keyboxes and the system, please contact CBR Keybox Administrator, Laura Dodds, at (614) 475-4000 ext. 282.