Crime Scene Cleanup's Three Business Models
How much crime scene cleanup costs depends on information and three different crime scene cleanup business models:
Brief
- Coroner cleaning companies (Monopolies): Highest possible crime scene cleanup prices. $5,000, $10,000, and much more.
- Referral-Kickback cleaning companies: Highest possible crime scene cleanup prices and less.
- Free Enterprise cleaning companies: Whatever the market will bare, or fractions of the above.
Control over Clients' Cleaning Company Information
How much crime scene cleanup costs depends on a potential clients information. Because people rarely need a professional cleaning company, it's not the type of information they keep handy. In fact, when needed the need arises at a terrible time. Few have an interest in looking for a cleaning company. So when a county coroner's employee hands them a list of cleaning companies, a halo affect over the these companies from an authority arises. Clients have no need to have a concern, the believe. Little do they know many other companies exist, companies prepared to do more for a fraction of the cost.
Contacts to coroner's (or medical examiner) employees offers the best of all possible worlds for a cleaning company. Some of these contacts go back decades.
By controlling their clients' informatin about professional cleaning companies. By passing a list of favored cleaning companies to their clients, clients come to believe their "list" of cleaning companies has an official stamp of approval on it. Nothing could be farther from their client's best interests. County tax payers referred by coroners' employees are being directed to the more expensive cleaning companies.
A company owned by coroner's employees charges the most (monopoly). A company with contacts in a coroner's office charges as much (referral-kickbacks). A company with no contacts in a coroner's office charges the least. A self-employed crime scene cleanup technician charges less than all of the above.
The Monopoly Model
A monopoly over crime scene cleanup happens with county employees go into a crime scene cleanup business. They "moonlilght" both on and off the job. Coroner's investigators, coroner's body movers, coroner clerks, and coroner supervisors may have a crime scene cleanup business. Supervisors at the top may orchestrate from above to protect their institution from external threats. Because of their senority, supervisors become vulnerable for past dealings in crime scene cleanup networks. Now they must protect their previous peers or suffer exposure in retribution.
Insubordinate subordinates also represent a threat, but from inside their institution. As a result supervisors become protectors and legitimization autorities for employee msbehavior. The risk of exposre from such employees remains throughout monopoly supervisor's county careers.
Other employees simply go-along-to-get-along. While supervision protects everyone's vested interest in their monopoly, employees outside of this monopoly find supervision now keeps them in line as subordinates and potential xyz.
Meanwhile, some county employees know of a fellow employee crime scene cleanup business owner. They refer to this person's business for a referral kickback.
Sometimes county employees simply refer their grieving tax payers to private companies (Referral-Kickback Model) and receive a kickback. These companies remain outside of the coroner's office monopoly. Either way, a monopoly over crime scene cleanup creates a sole-source, crime scene cleanup provider.
"Shilling" for a crime scene cleanup company also describes this sort of business relationship for county employees. Metaphorically, county employees become like a piano player in a house of prostitution. They refer house clients to various service providers for a small fee in exchange. They setup the illicit relationship, but take no part in its activities. Tax payers remain ignorant of their plight in crime scene cleanup, monopoly dealiings.
It is said, in the United States, that most people object to this monopoly business model.
The Referral-Kickback Model
The Referral-Kickback model shares with the monopoly cleanup businesses, in part. Referral-Kickback companies may not have a monopoly over coroner's office referrals. They may still receive some referrals from county employees, not all of whom work for the coroner's office. County administrator employees have such control over crime scene cleanup referrals from time to time.
How county administrator employees gain power over referrals from probate courts. At times victims of homicides and suicides have no one to inherit their property. Or, at times, such victims' property goes into "probate." Probate means that a deceased person's property must go to certain people declared by a probate court. Sometimes businesses and others have a claim against the victim's property. At other times a victim has not made a will. In this case, family member have a probate judge straighten out who gets what.
In the meantime, a county administrator technician may select a group of crime scene cleanup companies to bid. This county employee has control over who gets to bid for a crime scene cleanup and who does not. Orange County, California has such a referral-kickback system in place. At times a County Sheriff's employee receives the offer to perform a probate court's crime scene cleanup needs.
In the referral-kickback crime scene cleanup model, legitimate crime scene cleanup companies take part in this kickback-referral scheme. For their part, they see their role in this scheme with county employees as honest marketing. They pay a fair price for their referrals just as they would pay another crime scene cleanup company for a referral. They usually pay around ten percent of their total fee.
As noted, a referral-kickback company does not share a monopoly over a county's grieving tax payers. They simply receive referrals from county employees for a percentage of their gross. Like a monopoly crime scene cleanup company, they may pick-and-choose among those in need of homicide, suicide, and unattended death with decomposition cleanup needs.
Franchise companies may fall within this relationship to county employees, but with some differences. Franchised crime scene cleanup companies resemeble a model more like a government oligarchy, like the US Government -- Corporations -- Commercial Media. Franchises have a top-to-bottom business structure with feedback loops from both top and bottom.
Much like a kickback-referral model, some franchises receive referrals from county employees. Be they coroner, medical examiner, or county administrator employees, a kickback-referral scheme works to their advantage when available. Because of their nationewide network and corporate headquarters, referrals from out of state benefit these crime scene cleanup franchises.
The Free Enterprise Model
The Free Market
A free market for crime scene cleanup companies and grieving families offers lower prices by any measure. However, it does not offer county government employees a monopoly. Government employees no longer profet off homicide victims, suicide victims' families, or unattended death decomposition victim's families. In a free enterprise business model crime scene cleanup companies have no direct access potential clients. As a result, they must use business marketing for eliciting service clients.
Although government employees and kickback-referral companies lose their valuable monopoly in a free market, they continue with hughe advantages. For one, they can afford to lose bids. They know before bidding on a free market cleanup opportunity more will arise from the government monopoly. As a consequence, they lose many bids to free enterprise companies.
If we think of an economy as a structure with contents, like a house (Aristotle), then we have various costs. We have the costs of the structure. We have the costs of furniture. Then we have the costs of water, electricity, sewage, and so on. So an economy has incoming and outgoing expenses. A worthy economy produces something too. Whatever it produces sells for a bit more than it costs to keep itself going. This we call "profit." Some people in some places call this "bit more" surplus value.
In crime scene cleanup three types of economies exist. All three we will call "service economies," which means they provide a service. In most cases a business needs to market its services. Marketing means to let consumers of your business know about your services. A consumer needs or desires your services. Usually crime scene cleanup qualifies as a need, but not always.Marketing costs money. These costs belong to crime scene cleanup's service economy.
Each business economy has its own demands, costs, and profits.costs as it does because it ha suicide cleanup web page has no connection to Orange County's Coroner's Department. We respect the rights of families, friends, and business's related to suicide victims. We would not, could not take part in denying suicide victim's relations an opportunity to search for other professional cleaning companies. In fact, we have an active role in Orange County's Consumer Fraud web site efforts. In this way we help to protect XXXX residents from their county government's coroner's office and administrator's offices.
|
