How PERS Can Drive Business for Security Dealers

Learn how to enter the personal emergency response systems market to build recurring monthly revenue for your security firm.

Mobile PERS Expands Market

There are two other aspects associated with PERS that need to be discussed. The first is the need for this managed service in areas of business and personal affairs other than senior citizens. The second is the advent of mobile PERS (mPERS) using cellular communications.

“What’s exciting about the PERS industry today is that it’s going mobile. Besides 10,000 people a day turning 65, and aside from the 10,000 phone lines that also are going away, there is a growing need for mobile PERS today,” says Baskin.

Alarm firms also should dedicate specific individuals, or even an entire portion of their cen
tral station operations, to PERS monitoring and marketing. This will create a channel of responsibility that includes employee education and marketing expertise.

For example, an employee who works for a gas/oil service could find himself in trouble while inspecting gas or oil wells in a rural environment. Having the means of connecting with a PERS service enables him to obtain help with the press of a single button. Another example is the driver of a gas tanker who has, for whatever reason, experienced a leak of potentially lethal gas while holed up in the cab of his truck.

This mPERS is accomplished using a special smartphone or tablet application program (app). This great service has many applications besides just lone workers and the elderly. Also consider, for instance, college students and those who work in retail who deposit the store’s cash at the end of the day. It’s also good for people who simply don’t want to carry two devices – a cellphone and separate PERS unit.

RELATED: PERS: The Perfect RMR Opportunity

“We take someone’s cellphone and turn it into a mobile PERS device. They end up calling a special number at our call center that pulls the GPS coordinates right out of the phone,” says Baskin. “We know who the first responder is in that locale in case we need to dispatch help. We stay on the phone with that person so if they at any time say help is needed, we can dispatch.”

Setting Up Geo-Fencing Services

Through cellular technology combined with GPS it’s now possible to extend a parent’s or caregiver’s reach beyond four walls. According to Baskin, you have to have a cell-driven device, the cellular service and an end-user Web portal where the client can go to control these devices. This portal also allows them to see where a mother, grandmother or child is at the moment, or see where an emergency is taking place in real-time. This, of course, is available through mPERS and equipped centrals like American Two-Way, Affiliated Monitoring and EMERgency24.

“Our firm provides a complete program for dealers who want to enter the mobile PERS market,” says Baskin. “Because there are so many pieces and parts to it, we provide the devices to the dealer on a wholesale basis, along with the cellular service. And we actually have a Web portal that the dealer can put on their own Web site so his customers can login to see where someone is at any time of the day.”

Through geo-fencing, which is a GPS service, the client can set boundaries so he/she knows when the person they care about strays into areas where they should not be. This is ideal for assuring the overall safety of latchkey children as well as aging mothers, grandmothers, lone workers, company service technicians, and more.

Let’s say after school your customer wants to know if their children arrived home, or perhaps at their babysitter’s house. They can geo-fence each of them and logon to see that the children made it to their destination. These systems also can send notifications by text via cellphones. This will tell the client what they need to know.

PERS may very well be an alarm dealer’s ace in the hole where it comes to expanding their business beyond its traditional boundaries. Although this segment of the market has long been there, only recently has it come of age. And, according to some industry experts, there’s a lot more on the horizon.

Al Colombo is a long-time trade journalist and copywriter in the electronic security market. His experience includes 15 years as a field technician and 28 years in technical writing.

 

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About the Author

Contact:

Al Colombo is a long-time trade journalist and professional in the security and life-safety markets. His work includes more than 40 years in security and life-safety as an installer, salesman, service tech, trade journalist, project manager,and an operations manager. You can contact Colombo through TpromoCom, a consultancy agency based in Canton, Ohio, by emailing [email protected], call 330-956-9003, visit www.Tpromo.Com.

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