Message from the President
By Robert Few, President & CEO

April is the month of Aphrodite, a Greek Goddess of love and beauty. It's the fourth month of the year that brings us April Fool’s Day, Easter, Passover, Tax Day, Patriots’ Day, Earth Day, World Penguin Day and Buddha's birthday, just to name a few. Hibernating animals come out of their winter sleep, birds fly back to settle, and in some parts of the world the harvest season begins. This month represents a time of full emergence, growth and reconnecting.
 
Let’s focus on reconnecting for the purpose of this month’s feature. In this edition of our newsletter, you will see an article penned by Richard Drew, our VP of Dealer Relations, on the importance of reading and reviewing your daily reports. If you are not receiving a daily report from us, or any other partners you may have, give us a call. There is a lot of great information that you can pull out, dissect, and act on!
 
Over the past few months, there have been two issues that have come to our attention that could have been resolved a lot sooner if someone was reviewing the information on a more proactive basis. Having been in this industry for a long, long time, I know too well how easy it is to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of running our companies, taking care of our people, and providing exceptional services day after day, and that it sometimes feels like adding another task will make all the wheels come off or all of the balls we are juggling fall to the ground. I am here to tell you that they won’t! By setting up some time every day or every week to proactively review the activity from your customers, you will better your company, better the customer experience and increase your revenue!
 
Daily reports are a gold mine for service revenue, customer loyalty and upsell opportunity. When you call your customer about an issue before they call you, you win. When you offer to come check on a system that false alarmed the night before, the customer immediately feels the love, and every time you speak to or see a customer, you get to sell, sell, sell.
 
If you want to hear more about how to better engage your customers and provide them with an exceptional experience, come to the CAA Palm Springs Convention June 23-26. I am giving a session on the customer experience on Thursday. Which brings up my next tie to reconnecting. CAA Palm Springs will be our first time in over a year to reconnect IN PERSON! This is a great opportunity for us to get together, learn from each other and share best practices in our industry. What better way to do that than playing golf in the Springs at the end of June? Will you join me? I will bring plenty of water!!

Sincerely,
 
Robert Few - President & CEO
General Monitoring Services
(201) 838-0091
Insightful Tips from GMS
Increase Your Daily Awareness!

By Richard Drew Vice President, Dealer Relations, GMS

Greetings, Alarm Dealers!

I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight what may be an overlooked feature of our monitoring services: Your daily automated reports.

I know you are all extremely diligent about reviewing these on a daily basis. Checking for potentially costly runaways, false alarm fines, and excessive nuisance calls that can lead to customer disengagement. Of course you are. Right?

If not, you are missing out on a valuable window into your customer’s habits, unspoken needs, and opportunities for revenue generating service calls and upgrades.

The reports available are deeply customizable, but our standard trio consists of a report showing all your alarms that could result in a dispatch (burglary, fire, medical, etc.), a report with all system maintenance or trouble conditions such as power fails and low batteries, and a report showing any accounts that have not sent in a scheduled test signal.

Keeping an eye on your customer’s trouble conditions allows you to initiate service calls rather than wait for them to come to you and staying on top of any missed timer test signals is critical to ensuring system functionality for all of your clients.

We can add or alter these reports in a number of ways, making them weekly or monthly or creating supplemental reports to focus on specific events like communication fails, sensor troubles, or ground faults.

We can even create reports showing you all accounts that we sent police or fire response to, allowing you to assist your customers in avoiding costly false alarm fines.

We can also send the various reports to as many or as few emails as you like. We can send the trouble reports to your technicians and the alarm responses to your customer service department.

If you utilize any of our answering services we can even create a report that sends any after-hours service requests to any email of your choosing. To keep an eye on things you can assign any administrative emails to all the reports listed above.

If you utilize any of our video monitoring I recommend requesting a report showing you just your video activations. Your pricing with us likely has an upper limit on how many video events are included in your monthly rate before extra charges kick in.

To inquire about the myriad reports options GMS can offer you contact Dealer Support at 888-467-1119 and an operator will be happy to assist you.

Sincerely,

Richard Drew - Vice President, Dealer Relations
General Monitoring Services
(877) 264-9174

GMS Staff Achievements and Appreciation
Promotions & Anniversaries at GMS this Month!

Promotions
A big congratulations are in order for our day shift’s new Advanced Operator, Sydney Harris. We have been lucky enough to have Sydney on the GMS team for two years now and are excited to see what the future holds for him.

Congratulations are also in order for day shift’s new Lead Operator, Cindy Lagunas. Cindy has displayed a calm demeanor and attention to detail in the four years she has been on our team, making her the ideal person for this new role.

Anniversaries
Jamie Lamb is celebrating her first year with GMS. Thank You Jamie for your hard work and positive attitude.

Angelica Pfingsten is celebrating her fourth year at GMS. Angelica is currently a Lead Operator on the grave yard shift and a volunteers on the Employee Action Group.

Congratulations to Automation Specialist
Tameka Jordan
22 Year Anniversary at GMS!
We would to express our appreciation for this achievement and milestone. Loyal and dedicated employees like Tameka are the foundation to any successful company. Thank you Tameka for your many years of wonderful service and contributions to our success.

Employee of the Month
The April 2021 Employee of the Month is Jackilin Cedeno, our swing shift Lead Operator. Congrats Jackilin!



Join us in Palm Springs - 2 FREE Registrations
2021 CAA Spring Convention
June 23-26, 2021
Hilton Palm Springs California

The CAA Palm Springs Convention will be held June 23-26, 2021 at the Hilton Palm Springs.

First two registered attendees from each alarm company are FREE, guests of the sponsors. This covers everything except hotel.

The event will include three hosted receptions, meals on Friday and Saturday, opening round of golf at Escena Golf Club, great Workshops as well as featured Youth Scholarship presentation and the popular ladies lunch at La Vallauris. 

Book your room at the Hilton - CAA Discounted Rate only $149/night

Below is the link to register and view available workshops and full program details. Registration includes three hosted receptions, golf at Escena, meals and workshops.

ALARM DEALER PROGRAM
Residential & Commercical
Cybersecurity Solutions
The Cybersecurity Opportunity for Alarm Dealers

Diversify and Grow-Increase Recurring Revenue-Retain Customers

Over 100 million people experience cybercrime every year in the U.S. Not surprisingly, cybercrime and identity theft have become the #1 crime-related worry for consumers at a rate nearly 2 times higher than home burglary.

As Americans have become increasingly reliant on digital data, the incidence of data breaches has also increased to the point that hundreds of millions of Americans have been affected one way or another. Consequently, the demand for home and family cybersecurity solutions is skyrocketing.

Alarm companies are in a unique position with a clear opportunity to take the lead in the fight against cybercrime and further solidify their relationship of trust with their customers.

Dealers that offer cybersecurity solutions will create a significant competitive advantage in their market. They will add new customers, boost customer retention, and substantially increase recurring monthly revenue (RMR) per customer.

INVISUS offers a specialized cybersecurity partner program that enables alarm companies to diversify and expand their business by taking advantage of this massive market trend now.

Register below to join us for a very detailed and informative webinar Diversify and Grow with Cybersecurity RMR
Thursday May 06, 2021 at 11:00 AM PDT.

Industry News and Tips Links
5 Minute Tech Quiz
Every month, SDM tests your knowledge about the security industry with the “Five Minute Tech Quiz.” Video, access control, fire, standards, math – you never know what the quiz will feature next.

, SIA GovSummit 
Each year, SIA GovSummit brings together government security leaders with private industry technologists for top-quality information sharing and education on security topics affecting federal, state and local agencies. 
NFPA
A SAFER WORLD STARTS HERE
Registration is now open! Continuing through March 2022, this year-long virtual series will consist of a variety of one-day events focused on specific stakeholder groups and topic areas. The series will feature accessible and affordable educational content, industry roundtable discussions, networking opportunities, live chat sessions, sponsor demonstrations, and more. 




Chance to Win!
$100.00 Amazon Gift Card
Participate to help SSI share an accurate assessment of the current trends in this increasingly important aspect of the professional security industry. What challenges are you facing? Where have you seen success? Has the pandemic hurt or helped your business? And what are your plans for 2021? Deadline to participate is April 30. Answers and email addresses will be kept strictly confidential and only used in tabulation with others. It should not take more than 15 minutes.
Silly Criminals

Referral Program
Current and Active Dealer Partners will receive up to $1,000.00 in the form of an invoice credit for referring a new dealer to GMS for Monitoring Service Solutions.
Monitoring Solutions