Monitoring Center of the Year
Affiliated Monitoring is not afraid to invest in operational improvements, technological improvements, service offerings or employee training — all in an effort to provide first-class service to dealers and customers and to continue to excel in an ever-changing industry.
Winner: Affiliated Monitoring, Union, N.J.
This multi-location monitoring services provider places a high level of importance on state-of-the-art technology, positive customer experiences and accurate communication with its dealers.
Monitoring Center Locations: Houston, Texas and Union, N.J.
Number of Dealers: 2,500+
Number of Employees: 500+
Affiliated Monitoring was founded in New York City in January 1977, a common time for the birth of a third-party monitoring station when opportunities and technology were both ripe, says Daniel Oppenheim, executive vice president at the company.
“Forty-one years later, through hard work and good fortune, we have continued to deliver good service and watch our dealers and their businesses grow. The hard work is our necessary investment to continue to service our dealers and the good fortune is the security industry’s continued health and growth. Lastly, I think part of our receiving this honor is our company’s focus — we know who we are and who we’re not,” Oppenheim tells SDM.
Today, Affiliated Monitoring (Affiliated), which has been a TMA Five Diamond Company since 2005, has grown to more than 500 employees and more than 2,500 dealers. The company has earned itself the 2018 TMA Monitoring Center of the Year award, in part, for its emphasis on taking care of its employees, dealer customers and their subscribers. Meeting the company’s goal of a high level of care, however, takes people, technology and training.
Affiliated has endless examples of its commitment to investing in its people, its customers and the industry at large. For instance, take the company’s monitoring continuity plan. Affiliated operates its two interconnected, fully redundant, load-sharing monitoring centers (one in New Jersey, the other in Texas) with a slew of technology in place to make sure monitoring can continue in the event of an emergency, and also that all team members are properly cared for.
Some of that emergency preparedness technology includes dual generators at both the Texas and New Jersey locations with automatic switchover and 16 days of fuel on site at both facilities. Additionally, Affiliated’s dual redundant independent voice and data networks are designed for resiliency to maintain operational uptime even in the face of multiple failures in the company’s network.
When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey in 2012, Affiliated’s plan was put to the test in a significant way. Without local utility power for eight days, the company’s New Jersey monitoring center and staff were able to operate continuously throughout the storm and afterwards. In addition, they were able to learn from the event and used the experience to refine and improve the company’s emergency preparedness, expanding it to cover Affiliated’s Houston facility, which was added in 2016. In 2017 the Houston center was challenged by Hurricane Harvey and the preparations allowed for the center’s continuous operation without having to redistribute loads, according to Oppenheim.
Continuous Improvement
Affiliated is always looking at ways to give staff, management, dealers and their subscribers new tools, streamline operations and strengthen communications. Eager to deliver new technologies and services to its dealers and their subscribers, the company has its own in-house software development team made up of 10 dedicated software developers, along with project managers, quality-assurance specialists and other dedicated employees. In fact, the company hired its first dedicated software programmer more than a decade ago, and since then, Affiliated’s internal team has transformed many of the company’s operations and services.
“It’s a tremendous endeavor,” Oppenheim says. “We are in a particular industry where a lot of the ideas we have and the services we want to offer to our dealers are not available in the marketplace. In other industries there may be providers that offer these types of software that we could license or purchase, but in the security alarm industry that isn’t the case. We have a unique vision of the world and we came to realize that to be able to chart a course ourselves, we needed to make an investment in software development. I believe that’s one of the reasons our dealers value us. We not only have the vision of where our industry is headed but we have the ability to execute on that vision without being at the whim of a third party to develop a tool we need.”
The company’s in-house team manages advanced APIs, which allow Affiliated to monitor any Internet of Things (IoT) sensor as well as advanced two-way interactive video, so that Affiliated can empower its dealers to participate in the opportunities presented by IoT and video monitoring.
Another example of Affiliated’s in-house development is AlertMessage priority group chat interactive service. Launched in 2016, AlertMessage sends text messages to members of a subscriber’s notification list and allows them to instantly launch a group chat without the need to download an app. Within 18 months of the launch, more than half of Affiliated’s alarm dealers deployed AlertMessage to their subscribers, and Oppenheim says it has had a profound impact on false alarms.
Understanding Today’s Employee
Just like it focuses on constantly improving its services and technologies, Affiliated aims to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to retaining employees.
In 2015, the company hired a consultant to help ensure that its retention and incentive programs were meeting the needs of the millennial generation. This led to several small, but impactful changes at Affiliated’s monitoring centers. Some of these changes include a revamped mentoring program focused on employee engagement.
Additionally, Affiliated deployed interactive digital signage throughout the facilities to keep employees informed with news such as positive customer feedback, career advancement opportunities and sponsored community service projects. The company refreshed its suite of recognition programs to appeal to a new generation of operators. Affiliated also hired a chief learning officer and implemented its interactive learning management system in 2016, helping to increase operator training success.
“We are constantly evaluating and watching, both through formal paths like employee surveys and tracking retention as well as informally through mentor feedback,” Oppenheim says. “As for our partners, we understand that we exist in an environment where the success of our dealers is our success. We only grow when they grow. Therefore, we need to put them in a position to prosper and that is our recipe.”
Learn About the Finalists
Bill Fisher and Shari Wilson were honored as finalists in the Manager of the Year category.
Universal Atlantic Systems’ (UAS) Central Station Manager Bill Fisher meets one-on-one with new hires to gather feedback about the training process. Fisher helped to implement a “Stay Increase” program, designed to encourage dispatchers to stay in their current role by offering them a pay increase every six months for their first two years. The program has resulted in decreased dispatcher turnover since its inception. In another instance, Fisher helped decrease the number of operator-handled alarms by third-shift employees through daily reports, tracking and ensuring proper programming. In 2017, the average alarm count decreased by more than 400 signals a day even though UAS added 1,600 accounts in this time frame.
Since starting out at ADT in 1983, Shari Wilson has had many roles, including installation dispatcher, monitoring supervisor, customer operations director and now senior director of customer care. With her focus on the customer, Wilson has created a culture of accountability at the monitoring center, displaying empathy coupled with strong mentoring skills. For example, Wilson has one-on-one meetings with her leadership team members every week for review of performance and side-by-side coaching. She facilitates focus groups each month called “Sharing with Shari” in order to identify pain points and challenges of front-line staff, and to look for ways to improve their jobs and workplace environment.
