Protection 1's customer-first approach applies to ASIS show

Sept. 25, 2013
Back-to-basics trade show strategy coincides with newly announced service offerings

Protection 1 is taking a different-than-usual approach to the ASIS show in Chicago this week. According to chief marketing officer Jamie Haenggi, the company is eager to show that its rapid growth has not affected its ability to get personal with its customers. In fact, if you visit the Protection 1 booth on the show floor, you will likely notice how much smaller it is compared to recent years.

“Our customers told us they liked the intimate setting (that we have used in years past),” Haenggi  explained. “Despite our getting bigger, we wanted to get back to that — it is much more personal.”

Coupled with this back-to-basics approach to the trade show is the company’s new approach to national account installations. Protection 1on Tuesday announced the launch of a new approach to national account roll outs. Leveraging its national footprint, the company has augmented its installation capabilities using a cross functional team of installers from both national accounts and its 1 to 1 program. Through this strategy the company will be able to complete national account installations in very quick timelines—often only a day.

They call it their “SEAL team,” and Haenggi said they have gone city to city for major accounts and completed 600 installs in a single 30-day period. “When we recently won a national drug store chain with more than 4,500 locations and they wanted them changed over in a short period of time, we knew we needed to think outside the box on how to deliver,” CEO Tim Whall explained in a press release. Generally, the team will descend on a particular city and complete as many branch location installs it can, and Haenggi said they can usually finish an entire city’s installs in a matter of days.

“This is part of our strategy to manage this growth,” she said.

Also at the show, Protection 1 announced it has commercialized its Enterprise Solutions division to focus on data centers, the financial, energy, education and healthcare markets, and others. By deploying virtual monitoring and maintenance (VMM) technology, Protection 1 is able configure, install and monitor whole enterprise solutions. Services include system health-check monitoring, on-site repair, staffed technical support, and management of access control and video available 24 hours a day.

“Our IT team is now customer-facing,” explained Chris BenVau the company’s senior VP of Enterprise Solutions. “We will often know about an issue before the customer even realizes it, and we give them assurance that everything is running properly with a four-hour (or less) response time.”

This Enterprise Solutions division is a result of using the expertise of recent Protection 1 acquisitions Suntera and Integration Logistics. “Enterprises need solutions that surpass industry norms and Protection 1 is now uniquely positioned to meet and exceed the needs of the marketplace,” Whall said in a statement.