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Select Security Makes for a Compelling Installer of the Year Runner-Up

Select Security’s dedication to its employees and customers has earned it the distinction of Large Installer of the Year runner-up.

Select Security's Sacred Cow Project is an initiative that focuses on improving outdated core processes and procedures.

July 11, 2017 Arlen Schweiger Jump to Comments

With a focus on being a “compelling place to work, shop and invest,” it’s safe to say Select Security has shown success in striving to check off that trio of boxes.

So much so that the Lancaster, Pa.-based security provider has certainly established itself as a compelling place to bestow runner-up Installer of the Year (large company) accolades.

From 15 office locations the company services more than 30,000 accounts in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Select Security offers integrated security and fire alarms, video surveillance, access control, along with home security, life-safety, and home automation systems.

Additionally, the security provider offers monitoring services through its four Secure Operation Centers that are each UL Listed, Factory Mutual approved, and have earned the Five Diamond certification from The Monitoring Association (formerly CSAA).

“It’s our passion for what we do that shows itself in the great lengths we go to provide our customers with a one-of-a-kind experience,” says Joseph Mitton, director of marketing & communications. “We are obsessed with using our skills and the tools at our disposal to be the heroes our customers expect us to be. Trust can only be built on the foundations of a genuine relationship with our customers, and our focus on fanatical customer service ensures that faith is well placed.”

To continue to improve its customer experience, Select Security embarked on some significant changes at the beginning of this year to create efficiencies in the training of its account executives and installation and service technicians, Mitton says, including restructuring the entire management team.

“Instead of operating under East and West Divisions, we united our entire sales organization under our director of sales and our entire operations division under our director of field operations and training. And we couldn’t be more satisfied with the results,” he says. “Not only did this allow us to streamline the sales and operations processes, but it also exposed several business practices that we could improve upon to ensure a greater customer experience.”

The company also added a dedicated traveling technical training manager to ensure each employee has the opportunity for continuing education and the field operations team is certified and highly skilled in all the products and services Select Security offers.

The moves, along with consistent planning and execution in the sales and operations divisions, helped set up Select Security for success in completing several recent acquisitions, Mitton says.

It added several thousand new customers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, North Carolina, and opened a new locations in Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Owensboro, Ky.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Pittsburgh.

To ensure a smooth transition and grow its footprint in a new market, Select Security added several new members to management team in the Carolinas.

“We’ve got a great financial partner with Goldman Sachs, which has allowed us to be very active in the acquisition marketplace, in addition to building an aggressive organic growth plan,” explains President Steve Firestone. “All of our growth planning is centered around filling in the gaps in our existing trade areas, maximizing our growth opportunities in markets we enter through acquisitions, and ensuring market share growth in all of our territories. Our goals, and the strategies we use to reach them, are evaluated quarterly with the sales management team, and on a regular basis with the senior leadership team.”

Earlier this year, the company celebrated the completion of the first round of its Sacred Cow Project, an initiative that focuses on improving outdated core processes and procedures, and began Sacred Cow 2.0.

Select Security has also been testing new technology and ways to receive customer service tickets and respond to customer questions and issues in a more timely and efficient manner.

“We’re tackling specific processes and procedures that address branch classification, department level budgeting, expense control, licensing and permitting, and remote programming. This year we focused on the scalability of each new process and procedure,” Mitton says. “While we want to make sure these new procedures work for our organization in the present, we also want to make sure they will continue to help us be efficient and effective as we grow as a company.”

BEST OF THE BEST: Check out the rest of the winners and runners-up here!

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