The complexity of providing proper protection of people and property has never been greater for those responsible for security in this information age. HSM Electronic Protection Services Inc. has a bigger focus on guaranteeing that clients get the most out of their investments in electronic security solutions, while security vendors continue to evolve to meet the challenges.

It is no longer adequate to simply offer a national alarm monitoring interface. The loss prevention officers and security directors of today's time expect no less than a total commitment to technology, processes, and people.

According to the director of HSM ProtectionNet customer service center the central monitoring station is at the heart of those solutions, which by definition involves great levels of customer interaction. His company interacts with more than 100,000 clients and agencies on a weakly basis. Their energy, competency, responsiveness and their empathy all paint a picture in the customer's mind about the level of they are capable of offering.

This was a brief introduction to business in the new international marketplace where local consumers increasingly predict world-class benefits.

According to senior vice president of sales and national accounts, there are five basic areas of dealings with their patrons that define their experience and perception of the company; these interactions are often referred to as touch points: account service, management, installation, billing and monitoring. Adding on excellence in these five areas is the basis for maintaining a long-term, winning business."

Fundamental Operations of the Station

The HSM ProtectionNet customer service center or the HSM's main central station deploys close to 1.7 million alarm signals and a hundred thousand outbound and inbound phone calls each week in transmit to officials, notifying and following up with customers and offering service to patrons. Adding on, patrons can access all of that data as it pertains to their accounts on a 24/7 real-time platform.

The senior director of restaurant and corporate security of Buffets Inc., in Eagan, Minn., is a case in point. On a daily basis, he and his team of workers utilize HSM information to manage the discipline of restaurant employees in closing and opening their stores all throughout the nation.

They have become significantly more effective in managing their false alarm activity, as they are able to quickly identify locations with excessive police and fire agency dispatch through the utilization of the HSM eDataManager tool. They can dig deeper and see the root causes of their agency dispatches, further assisting them to establish corrective operations.

HSM's 50-plus company offices and central station comprise a nationwide surveillance and service system. Minneapolis is where the customer service center is located, with a satellite operation, referred to as ProtectionNet West, located in Santa Ana, CA. The service center usually acts like the headquarters for HSM fundamental operations, including data technology services, monitoring, data entry, order entry, and service dispatch. Furthermore, the central station holds Factory Mutual listings and Underwriters Laboratories, as well as Department of Defense listings for the city of New York Fire Department and DOD-certified surveillance.

The technologically sophisticated hub of the company's monitoring and service network is the ProtectionNet center. It offers customer service to customers throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico as well as supplying centralized monitoring of alarms.

A Web-based tool that enables customers to administer their security objectives more efficiently through real-time access to building security system information is the HSM eDataManagerTM service. This internet interface has many capabilities including real time access to alarm history, providing the exact instant, dates and actions associated with alarm notifications obtained by the ProtectionNet department. 

On top of that eDataManager delivers a vast assortment of reporting capabilities that help the customer summarize key information about their account over time, including closing and opening history, service history and fire inspection activities, just as an example.

The patrons also have the capability to directly change contact lists, pass card holders and phone numbers, while also making a service call online or requesting additional account changes.

According to the chief information officer of HSM, the ongoing development of software-based technology is bringing customers sophisticated security operations and management capabilities in systems integration, access control, intrusion detection, video badging, ID verification, CCTV surveillance, and alarm monitoring. With all that said, the new technologies are nevertheless bringing new challenges with it. Most probably, the primary challenge may be making sure a system operates at an optimal level in the beginning and as users need modification.

The CIO also said that the business model has changed rapidly and the IT infrastructure to support the new demands of the security business is extremely essential.

The vice president of the facility also emphasizes people and processes, along with maintaining surveillance monitoring as the core service.

He then starts to explain that they have a highly tenured team of employees and dedicated leadership group, and on top of that they administer performance levels for all the touch points, especially alarm response, service management and account administration. Their operates obviously meet the highest levels of the industry.

The Standards of Business
the monitoring priority should be reflected by every aspect of a business model. From sales to marketing, HSM seizes every opportunity to educate its current and future patrons, on the benefits and strengths of its central station procedure.

According to the vice president, the key differentiator in the security industry is still monitoring, but it is also just one of the primary services offered through the ProtectionNet department as outlined in their HSM services collection.

Tenure and experience can make a life-changing difference in the lives of consumers. The ProtectionNet center has responded to millions of alarm events over the past twelve years. Furthermore, HSM responds to more than forty thousand alarm notifications, representing more than a thousand fire alarms and as well as more than twenty thousand burglar alarms on a weekly basis.

The CIO pointed out that each of these alarms represents a possible life-threatening situation for their patrons and our team knows the actions we take are extremely vital.  It is very important how we react during a moment of crisis both physically and emotionally. In most cases they are the only hope for their patrons who may be powerless to act on their own behalf at that moment in time.

For instance HSM received a hold-up alarm in March from the R&R Ginsberg Jewelers. It turned out that two men were robbing the store and had tied up the entire team of workers. As expected, the alarm was recognized, police were dispatched in under 10 seconds, and both criminals were detained with no further threat to the store or the workers. The employees and administration of the store cold not have been happier with the capabilities of the system, according to the vice president of the security company.

The HSM account teams have also been successful in overcoming many other stresses and challenges as soon as they come up. The director of store planning and development for retailer Harry & David of Medford, Ore., recognized the difference three years ago when she was searching for a vendor to provide on-going service at an elevated standard.

He pointed out that HSM's account team made the conversion very simple and effortless not only was the project completed in a short amount of time well beyond the expected deadline, but they did not get any complaints from the field managers.

The workers designated to work with his company made sure that all of these processes (which included: sales order processing, monitoring, service, customer data management, and technology) work together to deliver supervision services to their patrons.

HSM has invested heavily in developing new services in the central station, just as clients are investing resources in hardware and equipment, HSM through the ProtectionNet department has carried out new video monitoring services in the past year in order to assist customers to enhance security and reduce false alarms notifications.

In order to meet the rapidly changing environment of video security monitoring it is utilizing its eVideoManagerTM to provide a suite of services to its customers. On top of that, the ProtectionNet team of experts has developed many advancements in its (internet based) eDataManager utilities. In order to upgrade the alarm processing infrastructure each year HSM has carried out remarkable investments.

The CIO of the company was proud to point out that their customers have unfettered access to every detail of our monitoring operations. Just like an open book. This is certainly a terrific and rare feature that is very hard to find in many companies in our time and age. Customers, especially those that are suspicious of a new company, appreciate and highly value a company that displays all of its methods of operation to its patrons without restricting any information or keeping any secrets from the general public and its patrons in particular. Not only is this attractive to customers and guarantees a terrific reputation but it also sends a positive message to the workers and employees that their primary goal should be to gain the trust of the customer. Thus, resulting in a widespread improvement of the work ethics and customer relations standards in general.

Listening to the Consumers

On the other hand, the national account clients not only view the raw data but also receive brief reports a national account performance scorecard of HSM's own monitoring performance as it pertains to their information. This unique information card service supplied to HSM national accounts includes information on all five touchpoints and an opportunity for the client to rate HSM's conduct in each of the five client dealings.

The director of purchasing for Discovery Channel retail in Berkley, CA has expressed that they were very pleased with the professionalism, cooperation and responsiveness of the company.

Clearly, this kind of performance was not a coincidence. For the duration of the first 10 weeks of employment, new monitoring operators spend two weeks monitoring in a controlled environment under the direct supervision of a trainer and three weeks in the training classroom. This preliminary training equips the operators with the techniques necessary to handle alarm dispatch activities and make the associated outbound phone calls to patrons and other responding departments.

According to the CIO of the security company, false alarms persist to be one of the main worries in the business. HSM has added additional training courses for its most proficient operators in order to respond to calls from fire and police agencies to decrease unnecessary dispatches.

Furthermore, it provides preparation on specialty alarms, such as DOD UL, and NYC fire, and other specialty training on the most commonly sustained panels in the central station is proceeding on. This procedural support preparation serves as the foundation for technical assistance workers in the main department.

According to the CIO All of these measures were required to remain a world-class supplier alarm calls Electronic security monitoring interface technology surveillance technology security internet online integration, access control, intrusion detection, video badging, ID verification, CCTV surveillance, and alarm monitoring IT.