Central Station Selection Guide
Nine leading wholesale monitoring providers are spotlighted with details about their specialties, unique qualities and service offerings. Top executives describe the business advantages their third-party central stations bring to their security dealer customers.
Mace Central Station
Company: Mace
Central Station
Headquarters: Anaheim, Calif.; (800) 843-8526
Web site: macecs.com
Years in business: N/A
Number monitored accounts: 75,000 (55% commercial, 45% residential)
Annual revenues: $3 million
Employees: 85
Licenses, certifications & accreditations: UL, CSAA Five Diamond, ETL
Overview of services: Burglary, fire, video, dealer program, Web portal, smartphone apps.
Business advantages: “First of all, we are Mace. We give our dealer network the ability to offer ‘end-to-end security.’ Mace dealers can put Mace pepper spray and other personal defense products in mom’s hands, offer professionally installed security systems with Mace-branded security products in homes and businesses, and have them professionally monitored at our UL Listed, CSAA Five Diamond-certified central station. We sell and provision Videofied to our dealers providing preprogrammed, ready-to-install systems. We also own and manage three different AES mesh networks in Southern California and we monitor several other mesh networks across the country for our dealers. We are working on affinity programs with manufacturers and service providers for our dealers using the combined buying power to get discounts on equipment and services.”
— John McCann, President and CEO
Monitor America
Company: Monitor America
Headquarters: Moonachie, N.J.; (877) 971-6771
Web site: monitor-america.com
Years in business: 1
Number monitored accounts: N/A
Annual revenues: N/A
Employees: 25
Licenses, certifications & accreditations: UL UUFX Certified, CSAA Five Diamond
Overview of services: Cloud-based b-b, enterprise-level and residential services include hosted video and access control, virtual security tours, video concierge, video escorting, video monitoring and video verification of alarms, in addition to real-time event reporting and PERS.
Business advantages: “We want to partner, not own. We want the dealer to get the revenue, not a monolithic central station dealer program without personalized service. The necessary investment in overhead, intrusion and video monitoring software and IT signal-specific equipment can be daunting to a dealer — why not go with a central station that already have these assets in place? Dealers and integrators need to look at UL and Five Diamond central stations, period. There is too much liability to do business with any monitoring facility that does not carry these types of certifications. And don’t minimize the interest in large commercial businesses to use central stations to host and back up a number of their in-house, server-based services. Redundancy is essential in today’s business ecosystems and central stations such as Monitor America can provide these services as a complement to a company’s IT department — with less investment.”
— Jay Stuck, Vice President of Operations
Monitronics
Company: Monitronics Int’l
Headquarters: Dallas; (972) 243-7443
Web site: monitronics.com
Years in business: 19
Number monitored accounts: 1 million
Annual revenues: N/A
Employees: 850
Licenses, certifications & accreditations: UL Listed, IQ Certified, CSAA Five Diamond, ASAP to PSAP participating central station
Overview of services: Alarm monitoring includes fire and CO detection, medical alert systems, and remote home automation services from the customer’s computer, smartphone or tablet; nation’s largest dealer program.
Business advantages: “eContract is an exclusive application that lets Monitronics dealers avoid the hassles of hard-copy paperwork. Salespeople can quickly complete an electronic version of each contract, in the customer’s home, on an iPad or Android tablet. Monitronics dealers have flexibility to sell or keep accounts, set their own RMR ranges, and choose from Monitronics’ industry-best product manufacturing and distributing partners. Dealers have access to an exclusive online store to create and order customizable marketing materials. The Monitronics Experience, the [dealer] program’s quarterly onsite training seminar, is the foundation of a new dealer’s training. Throughout their time in the program, each dealer has a dedicated account manager and funding coordinator and access to in-depth door-to-door sales training tips and field service/technical training. Monitronics has negotiated rates with key vendors for job postings, credit processing and CRM management.”
— Bruce Mungiguerra, Vice President of Operations
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About the Author
Scott Goldfine
Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].
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