Net Promoter, developed by Satmetrix, Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld, is a worldwide standard for organizations to measure, understand, and improve their customer experience. The company describes The Net Promoter Score, or NPS^® as “the fundamental perspective that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.

 By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would recommend [your company] to a friend or colleague? — companies track these groups and get a clear measure of their company’s performance through their customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a 0- to 10-point scale and are categorized as follows:

•     Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.

•     Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.

•     Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate your company’s NPS, take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.” For more information, visit http://www.netpromoter.com/why-net-promoter/know/.

Shown on the cover with John Cerasuolo, ADS Security’s president and CEO, are several of the company’s top performers that each help drive the company’s mission to create “raving fans” through legendary service. “We work as a team in every department across the company to create our raving fans,” Cerasuolo told SDM.

Tory Robbins, Life Safety Consultant

Birmingham, Ala.

Tory was ADS Security’s top sales consultant last year. He has been one of the leading consultants in both residential and commercial sales in all 15 years he has been with ADS.

Melanie Edwards, Customer Care Representative

Nashville, Tenn.

Melanie has long-standing tenure in ADS Security’s customer care department and is a leader in excellent customer service skills. She has been with ADS for eight years.

Jennifer Stokes, Central Station Operator

Nashville, Tenn.

Jennifer is ADS Security’s lead operator on its managed access control, ADS SecureDoor^®. Jennifer started at ADS eight years ago and showed real interest and skill in the technical side of monitoring operation and has since worked to becomethe lead operator for this advanced commercial service.

Steve Maughan, Alarm Technician

Melbourne, Fla.

Steve was the 2013 Technician of the Year and was honored earlier this year at ADS Security’s annual President’s Club celebration. He received this honor for his excellent customer service and outstanding participation in the company’s technician thank-you note program (see this page for more).

ADS Security takes great pride in participating in and giving to the communities it serves. Each branch and corporate headquarters participates in a number of community programs each year. This past December marked the eighth year that ADS Security participated in the Wilson Trousdale Foster Association Angel Tree program, which provides special gifts for children in Wilson County, Tenn. Each year its senior staff donates all the money raised through their referrals to the Wounded Warrior Project to support servicemen and women who have been wounded in combat. And in the past year the company has also donated supplies and money for the Nashville Humane Association, Hearing Bridges for Deaf and Hearing Impaired Children, Boys Preparatory Academy and the Children’s Home Society of Florida, and the Harpeth River Watershed Association for the preservation of clean water in Tennessee. It also took part in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge campaign to raise awareness and money for the ALS Association.

“ADS Security is very proud of the many industry associations where it is actively engaged,” Sarah Castleman says. These affiliations range from groups such as Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC) and the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) to the Electronic Security Association (ESA), where the company participates on both a state and national level, and trade associations and vendor groups such as NetOne and Honeywell’s First Alert Professional program.

Shown are ADS’ (1) total annual revenues derived from security-related products as well as (2) services and revenue from recurring monthly revenue (RMR). The company targeted growth in overall revenue and RMR by aggressively expanding into automation services and closing five acquisitions in 2014.

CHART 3

As the importance of social media grows, so has ADS Security’s social media efforts.

The company has seen significant growth in its number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn accounts, and spent a great deal of time creating Google+ pages for all 15 branches of its company, reports Sarah Castleman, marketing coordinator for ADS Security. “A significant change in our social media engagement happened last year with the addition of a new team member. The ability to have another person to manage social accounts and create content has been a great resource,” she adds.

The company’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn sites all receive fresh content every day.

The company has seen an increase in followers across the board on all of its social media accounts, catapulted by social media campaigns and contests run by its marketing department. Currently the Facebook Page has 2,900 followers, which is notable for a regional company.

“We spend a lot of time creating content that can cross multiple platforms. Our marketing department has been filming customer testimonials that we upload to our YouTube account and then share across all platforms,” Castleman details.

The creation of Google+ pages has been a significant point of emphasis this past year.

“By creating a unique page for each of our markets, we have been able to boost our organic Google search rankings for all of our branches. Google+ pages are an important part of effective search engine optimization, and they also create another social media element for our brand. We have linked all of the specific locations pages on our website directly with that branches’ Google+ page and customers can leave reviews, get directions, find contact information and interact with the latest industry and safety news on our Google+ pages,” Castleman describes.

ADS Security says it will continue to utilize and increase brand awareness across all social platforms in the coming years.

ADS Security completed the construction of its central station in 2007 at its current 18,000-square-foot headquarters located at 3001 Armory Drive in Nashville, Tenn. “The central station is designed to optimize the engagement of operators and support effective teamwork, while maximizing utility of space,” according to the company.

A total of 12 workstations are used for dispatching and processing alarm signals. Each workstation is equipped with an under-workstation-mounted computer with limited Internet access, dual monitors, an Avaya voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone system with advanced distribution setup (distributes calls evenly among operators) and a hands-free headset with autodial.

The central station features two anchoring positions with a clear view of all operators and equipment in an adjacent server room; one anchor position belongs to the lead operator on duty, the other to the central station manager.

Each of the operators completes the highest level of industry training available, subsidized by ADS.

“It’s important for us to do the best job possible. That’s why our monitoring center team is made up of employees who have worked at ADS for many years. Each monitoring center operator has earned the Five Diamond Central Station Training Certificate, the highest training certification in the industry. We truly care about doing the best job possible in helping people when they really need us most. It makes us feel good to know we are making a difference,” says Lela Mullins, senior vice president, monitoring operations, ADS Security.

The data center is glass-enclosed and houses receivers, servers and the phone system. This access-controlled room has an independent fire suppression system, dual power redundancy and two redundant, 10-ton environmental control systems that manage the cooling and humidity in the room.

The central station is built on a 2.5-inch raised floor with removable carpet covered tiles where the voice, electric, and data cables are housed. This setup ensures that communication wiring is secure and can be easily accessed.

The adjacent access-controlled electrical room houses a dual Universal Power Supply (UPS), dual fiber carriers and a five-ton air handling unit.

The data entry department is located in a partitioned area within the central station and is comprised of four workstations and includes an area for media storage for all customer communications.

The office for the senior vice president of monitoring operations is adjacent to the central station, enclosed with large glass windows allowing immediate oversight and access to both the central station and data entry.

 There are three, 34-inch alarm monitors strategically positioned in the central station displaying the alarm queue and weather center, as well as one 70-inch monitor displaying 13 cameras throughout the ADS office and perimeter. From these highly visible monitors, central station operators can easily monitor pending customer activity, weather and movement around our facility.