A seller of safes says one thing, but the guy that has to drill the safes says another.
That's because most guys that sell safes only sell safes, and have a very limited knowledge about the product. Most of these guys are merely repeating what they have heard, or what they have read out of the sales literature.
Not much different than other products, take cars for example. What does the salesman know about the car? You would be better off talking to one of the guys in the service department.
I'm one of the rare guys that actually works on what I sell.
I have an electronic lock on mine. I open it almost every day. With 4 years of use it has never failed.
I drilled open a safe at a Dairy Queen a few years ago that had a first generation S&G electronic lock on it. I would guess the lock was +/- 15 years old, being opened multiple times a day, and restaurants tend to be very harsh environments for electronic locks.
The thing about electronic locks is that they can last forever, last a short period of time, and some are even dead right out of the box. It's a gamble, but it comes with some benefits you can't get from a mechanical lock.
Should it fail it can be replaced without doing significant obvious damage to the safe. And is covered under the warranty.
In most cases the lock is covered by the lock manufacturer's warranty, even though the safe manufacturer may be the one who takes your complaint and makes arrrangements to get your safe opened. The warranty on electronic locks is very short compared to that of a mechanical lock, usually one year.
If your electronic lock fails after one year, many of the safe manufacturers warranties will not cover it. They may do it as a good will gesture, but they are under no obligation.
With electronic locks and anything that uses a membrane most users want to PUSH the buttons. This is not necessary just a light push to hear the beep. This will make it last much longer and keep it operating fine for a very long time
The keypad can be the cause of a failure, and is easily fixed by replacing the keypad. There are all sorts of things that can cause an electronic lock to fail, many that are outside of your control regardless of how gentle you are. Of course being rough on a lock can cause problems as well.