COPS Monitoring Continues to Prioritize Dealers as Accolades Roll In

CSAA Five Diamond Marketing Marvel Award winner COPS Monitoring hasn’t forgotten its success is ‘completely dependent’ on dealers’ success.

Given the large number of central stations and employees COPS has, management has prioritized the Five Diamond program as a training milestone and achievement.

Given the large number of central stations and employees COPS has, management has prioritized the Five Diamond program — in addition to in-house initiatives — as a training milestone and achievement. At a certain point in their training, dispatchers must earn the privilege to be certified. As a result, those personnel view the CSAA Five Diamond credential as a prestigious distinction. It also adds value to the company’s rewards and recognition incentives.

“At COPS, we have a strong commitment to the betterment of our industry and an ongoing goal to institutionalize excellence in everything we do, which is why it only seemed natural to supplement our training program with the CSAA Five Diamond certification,” says Director of Marketing & Communications David Smith. “Today, we are not only proud to have five central stations that are CSAA Five Diamond Certified but also to have been chosen as last year’s Central Station of the Year. We have a great appreciation for our certification and how it furthers the advantage we have over our competition.”

Marketing Befitting a ‘Marvel’

COPS was encouraged to apply for the CSAA Marketing Marvel Award by many industry professionals familiar with its advertising and promotion tactics regarding CSAA and the Five Diamond Certification. “Our marketing initiatives are focused on showing potential dealers the benefits they can get by monitoring their accounts with COPS,” McMullen explains. “We are driven to be an industry leader, and work to express that in our advertising.”

To that end, COPS proudly displays the Five Diamond logo on its Web site, business cards and essentially in all ads and print materials since its first central station was certified many years ago. McMullen notes, however, that one of the greatest challenges in any advertising is grabbing the attention of your audience and then effectively communicating your message in a very short period of time.

CSAA’s Pam Petrow (left) and SSI’s Scott Goldfine (right) give 2015’s
Marvel Award to COPS’ David Smith.

“Unfortunately, many dealers view central station monitoring as somewhat of a commodity, but that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “Even if monitoring companies appear to be the same on the surface, there are material differences. The challenge we face is how to differentiate our services from competitors that may at first appear to be as capable as COPS.”

He points to technology and a UL Listing as an example. While COPS believes the UL notice is important, the requirements only represent a ‘minimum standard.’ “They don’t take into account situations like ours, where our technical infrastructure, redundancy, disaster preparedness and recovery abilities far exceed UL requirements,” adds McMullen.

COPS is also progressive in its use of social media. Where space allows, all of its social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+) mention the CSAA Five Diamond Certification. The bottom line is that COPS remains mindful to exploit every opportunity to tout and leverage its hard-earned certification.

Helping Customers Spread Message

Helping dealers promote their businesses is an integral part of COPS’ marketing initiatives. McMullen points out that the level of marketing sophistication seems to vary based on the resources a company possesses. “Our customers are independent alarm dealers. Some try to do their own marketing, while others seek assistance from professionals, just like they do with their monitoring,” he explains.

“We realize that not all dealers have the time, expertise or means to compete effectively from a marketing standpoint, which is why part of supporting our customers involves supplying them with print, digital and video marketing materials free of charge,” continues McMullen. “Our goal is to help level the playing field and help our dealers compete effectively in the marketplace, even against dealers with much greater resources.”

While some dealers prominently advertise that their accounts are monitored by COPS, the company also can provide services under the dealer’s name – completely “invisible” to their subscribers. If the needs are outside of what COPS can offer, dealers have access to expert marketing support through exclusive partnerships with a company that specializes in all types of alarm marketing, including professional logo design, business cards, Web sites, brochures, door hangers, etc.

“By working with professionals for marketing, our dealers are free to focus on what they do best: selling and installing alarm systems, and properly serving their customers,” says McMullen, who adds that company management had two main thoughts following news of the Marvel accolade.

“Our first thought was how our success can actually translate to serve as a benefit for our dealers and help give them a competitive edge in the marketplace,” he says. The second thought, he adds, was not allowing the business to rest on its laurels but rather continue striving to exceed its dealers’ expectations moving forward.

That served as the impetus for the creation of ads based on the slogan, “Our journey together is far from over,” which highlights its recent achievements. Because it’s challenging to fully get across in a print ad all the benefits COPS can offer, the firm has begun producing videos to better hold audience attention and tell the complete COPS story.

McMullen credits his marketing team for producing effective advertising materials and video tutorials in-house. That effort is spearheaded by Smith, who joined COPS in 2008 and brought with him nearly 20 years of central station operations management experience. In 2014 another key individual joined the team when Clint Scallin brought on his 10+ years of industry experience along with a degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale (Fla.).

McMullen adds that COPS also leverages as many “face-to-face” opportunities as it can. While meetings may not be considered traditional ‘marketing,’ COPS attends several local and national tradeshows, hosts many dealer appreciation events, and supports dealer training throughout the year.

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!

Security Is Our Business, Too

For professionals who recommend, buy and install all types of electronic security equipment, a free subscription to Commercial Integrator + Security Sales & Integration is like having a consultant on call. You’ll find an ideal balance of technology and business coverage, with installation tips and techniques for products and updates on how to add to your bottom line.

A FREE subscription to the top resource for security and integration industry will prove to be invaluable.

Subscribe Today!

Get Our Newsletters