You may have recently seen a Global News story on condo lockboxes. While the story focussed on condos and builder’s boxes, REALTOR^® boxes were lumped into the mix.

We’ve had some member inquiries about the story and as your communications manager, I wanted to make you fully aware of our response efforts.

On Tuesday morning, CREB^® was approached by a Global reporter. The reporter told our media relations staff that she had apparently spoken to a Calgary resident, who claimed that a lockbox on her property had been opened and the keys were used to commit a break and enter in her home. Further to that, the reporter claimed that this incident was part of an ongoing issue with lockboxes. 

We did our due diligence and conducted a short review of reported lockbox incidents in our database. While no key management system is 100 per cent tamper-proof, our data indicated that of the 30,000-plus member-owned lockboxes in Calgary and area, there have only been 34 reported incidents to CREB^® where a lockbox was vandalized or stolen since the conversion last November. To be clear, that is less than a one per cent incident rate over the course of 10 months.

Confident in this information, we shared our preliminary findings with the reporter and offered her the opportunity to conduct an on-camera interview. At that point, the reporter cancelled the interview and asked us to provide just the statistics. In the midst of crafting the email to her, the story about the condo builder boxes went up on the Global website.

Despite this, we reached out to the reporter again and offered the opportunity to conduct an interview the following day (Wednesday). At this point, we were told there may or may not be a specific lockbox story running at some point – maybe the following week. Again, we clarified that we are available at any time for an interview. There has been radio silence from the reporter since.

I know that this may seem like quite the cat and mouse game, but in essence, that is the nature of media relations. By providing the reporter with facts that refuted her assertion that REALTOR^® lockboxes are not safe, our media relations team managed the story in the interests of members.

That said, some of you may be wondering: why doesn’t CREB^® just run a clarifying statement or press release about the lockboxes? Because that will only lead to making a story where there is none. When you put out a release to refute something that most of the media is not paying attention to, you make yourself and the very thing you’re trying to refute their target. 

Often time with media relations, if we’re doing it well, you will never even know we are there. In this case, we prevented the reporter from zeroing in on our product or making the entire segment just about REALTOR^® lockboxes.

While I can understand how that approach can feel a bit like a hollow victory, it is how this game is played. In fact, 90 per cent of our job is mitigating risk for the organization, a.k.a. killing stories before they run.

As always, CREB^® wants to ensure that you are fully aware of our commitment to the safety and security of our members and their clients. We are looking further into the reporter’s claims and we have reached out to the Calgary Police Service (CPS) to verify if their lockbox best practice recommendations have changed.

We also encourage our members to continue to file incident reports with CPS and to advise us when a lockbox has gone missing so our data is accurate and up-to-date. We also ask that members continue to have conversations with their clients to ensure they are fully aware of the risks associated with using a lockbox.

Last, but not least, our SentriLock Hub remains the one-stop shop for any questions or training you may need in order to ensure you’re getting the best out of your lockboxes.

If you have any further questions or concerns about lockboxes, please feel free to contact Paula Knetsch, Member Experience Manager, at (403) 781-1306 or paula.knetsch@creb.ca.

If you’d like to discuss our media relations strategy or any other communications matter, please do reach out to me directly at (403) 781-1319 or anne.luchak@creb.ca.