‘FACT’ Helps Make Monitronics a PDQ Award Finalist
Founded in 1994, Dallas-based Monitronics Int’l is one of the nation’s largest security alarm monitoring companies. The third-party wholesale monitoring firm, which in 2011 was also a PDQ Award finalist and won FARA’s Industry False Alarm Reduction Achievement Award, provides monitored business and home security system services to 700,000+ residential and commercial customers through its network of nationwide, independent authorized dealers.
Monitronics has implemented a False Alarm Control Team (FACT), overseen by Supervisor Jorge Rodriquez, to further increase communication with subscribers. Among the objectives are building relationships with responding authorities and decrease false alarms that take police off the streets to handle true emergencies. Specialized reports are run with outbound phone calls for the subscribers who either have issues with their system or have forgotten their password. In 2011, FACT made personal visits to jurisdictions in different states, and worked with marketing to communicate and promote the changes through mail inserts and social media. In addition, Enhanced Verification Plus was launched as a program where the central station operators place one more call to the contact number before dispatching the authorities.
In its finalist PDQ entry this year, Norma Beaubien, False Alarm Reduction Section Director for the Montgomery County (Md.) Police Department, wrote: “Monitronics has instituted policies and procedures that are having a positive effect on the reduction of false alarms. While all are significant, the commercial reduction is particularly impressive. I know how hard it is to reduce commercial false alarms when customers can write off the losses, so I realize a tremendous effort was put forth to achieve the numbers. A residential dispatch rate of .18 means police respond to a false alarm approximately once every five years for each customer. That is truly a remarkable statistic and one of which Monitronics should be very proud.”
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About the Author
Scott Goldfine, Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher
Scott Goldfine is Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher of Security Sales & Integration. Well-versed in the technical and business aspects of electronic security (video surveillance, access control, systems integration, intrusion detection, fire/life safety), Goldfine is nationally recognized as an industry expert and speaker. Goldfine is involved in several security events and organizations, including the Electronic Security Association (ESA), Security Industry Association (SIA), Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC), False Alarm Reduction Association (FARA), ASIS Int'l and more. Goldfine also serves on several boards, including the SIA Marketing Committee, CSAA Marketing and Communications Committee, PSA Cybersecurity Advisory Council and Robolliance. He is a certified alarm technician, former cable-TV tech, audio company entrepreneur, and lifelong electronics and computers enthusiast. Goldfine joined Security Sales & Integration in 1998.
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