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PHOTO COURTESY OF ESX
The 13th annual Monitoring Center Excellence Awards
The 13th annual Monitoring Center Excellence Awards recognize one monitoring center and three individuals that stand out among the alarm monitoring industry, their peers and their customers.
Everyone has stories. Take this year’s Monitoring Center of the Year recipient and the time the company hired a consultant to make sure management was meeting the needs of the millennial generation. Take Carmelo Mosca, TMA’s Monitoring Center Manager of the Year recipient and his focus on not only being the best he can be at his job, but encouraging others to be the best they can be by taking a leadership role in his company’s mentorship program. Listen to the time Monitoring Center Operator of the Year recipient Patricia Fody used her instincts during a routine false alarm call to urge a customer to check on her daughter, who unbeknownst to them was experiencing a medical issue that would ultimately require time in intensive care before a full recovery. Or listen to the time when Beth Bailey, this year’s TMA Monitoring Center Support Person the Year, led her team in developing an internal system now used by all of her company’s customer care employees for processes and policies.
These stories may be unique to each recipient but they all seem to share a common thread: a dedication to the security industry and a culture of constant improvement. Perhaps it’s that dedication that allowed this year’s award recipients to stand out for the Excellence Awards’ judging panel.
The 2018 TMA Monitoring Center Excellence Awards — now in their 13th year — hosted by The Monitoring Association (TMA) and co-sponsored by SDM Magazine, recognize exceptional personnel and central stations in the industry that are certified by an approved Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), such as UL, FM Global and Intertek/ETL.
This year’s award recipients were announced at the opening ceremony of the Electronic Security Expo (ESX) in June.
The 2018 TMA Monitoring Center Excellence Award winners are: Affiliated Monitoring, Monitoring Center of the Year; Carmelo Mosca, Affiliated Monitoring, Manager of the Year; Patricia Fody, Vector Security, Operator of the Year; Beth Bailey, ADT, Support Person of the Year.
“TMA is honored each year to be able to recognize some of the most outstanding individuals and companies in our industry,” says Elizabeth Lasko, vice president of communications and marketing, TMA. “The companies and individuals nominated and chosen as finalists and winners each year are shining examples of how profoundly the monitoring industry takes its responsibility to protect life and property.”
To learn more about this year’s award recipients and their stories, read on. To learn more about the TMA Excellence Awards program and past recipients, visit www.tma.us. Award applications open in January of the year of award and final deadline is in March.
Learn About the Finalists
Both ADT and Vector Security were honored as finalists in the Monitoring Center of the Year category.
With more than 7 million subscribers and six fully redundant monitoring stations, ADT makes it a mission to deliver superior customer service and help save lives and protect property. The company updates its monitoring center manuals monthly to adapt to the ever-changing environment. One recent change ADT made to adapt to customer expectations was removing most of its interactive voice prompts to ensure customers speak to a live agent when inquiring about their alarms or requesting service. The company also invested in improving its monitoring center staff desktop tools, notifications, help centers and agent interfaces — all to help staff respond more quickly to customers.
All three of Vector Security’s monitoring center locations provide complete redundancy and have a dedicated technical support person who gives a monthly disaster drill to supervisors and managers. In addition, to ensure the technical depth of its team members beyond one person and ensure that multiple fully trained tech people are on the floor at all times, Vector has a “tech team” for which members attend two hours of technical training each month, as well as participate in testing and disaster drills. The company also has instituted a “go green policy,” which includes using electronic forms for all data-change requests, giving customers the choice of getting reports electronically, and using SharePoint so that shared information is all in one place without needing to print paper copies.
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+
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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.Manager of the Year
Carmelo Mosca tirelessly strives to improve and streamline operations.
Winner: Carmelo Mosca
Company: Affiliated Monitoring, Union, N.J.
Title: Managing Director, Monitoring Operations
Tenure at the company: 25 years
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Although Carmelo Mosca has spent almost a decade in his current position at Affiliated Monitoring, this year’s TMA Monitoring Manager of the Year recipient has progressed through all the ranks, beginning as a central station operator more than 25 years ago.
“He started as a central station operator and was quickly recognized as a talented and intelligent man with great potential,” says Daniel Oppenheim, executive vice president at Affiliated Monitoring.
That talent and potential have translated to Mosca always giving a concerted effort to do the best job he can, while regularly coming up with ideas to better himself, his peers and the organization.
“I can’t take credit for the quote I’m going to give you, but I believe we are in the dealer business and that starts with having happy people work here. That’s my mantra and I try to make sure that bleeds over into our customer interactions,” Mosca tells SDM.
Mosca constantly looks for ways to streamline and improve processes, and, when hiring new employees, he looks for organized, disciplined candidates that have that same level of creative problem-solving. Mosca recently spearheaded a drive to use e-learning assessment tools to better understand how monitoring specialist candidates were progressing and what areas of instruction could benefit from revision and improvement.
Oppenheim says nearly every policy followed within the central station has been formulated, established or refined by Mosca, including drafting operator scripts, standardizing data entry forms and rules, and the forming and management of the company’s training team and standardized training.
“It comes down to those on the front lines when it’s 4:30 on a Sunday and they need to make a judgement call. It’s then that [the monitoring center staff is] relying on their team and all the work that their managers and Carmelo have put in to create a culture of great customer service,” Oppenheim says.
Perhaps one of the biggest ways Mosca’s dedicated, hard-working presence is felt at Affiliated, is through the rapport he has built with employees, subscribers and dealers by taking the time to be a leader, constant communicator and voice of calm and reason, whatever the problem. If a customer encounters an issue, according to Oppenheim, the customer will receive a personal call from Mosca to answer any questions or address a problem.
“Carmelo has built personal relationships with dealer partners,” Oppenheim says. “This is a part of who he is, and often people reach out to him for advice or to check in. That’s not something you can teach; that’s innate. Dealer partners and companies appreciate Carmelo for the same reason we do.”
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.Operator of the Year
Patricia Fody uses her instincts and past experiences to deliver the best customer service she can.
Winner: Patricia Fody
Company: Vector Security, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Title: Central Station Alarm Response Operator
Tenure at the company: 8 years
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Patricia Fody, this year’s TMA Operator of the Year award recipient, has spent the last eight years as a central station alarm response operator at Vector Security, using her customer service and computer skills to excel at her job and handle difficult situations when necessary.
“Pat really enjoys helping people. That describes her very well. She helps customers and definitely supports her team in whatever they have to accomplish,” Anita Ostrowski, vice president of central stations at Vector Security, shares with SDM.
Throughout Fody’s time at Vector, she has progressed to become a member of the monitoring center’s Elite Team, which handles high-priority and VIP customer accounts. Fody’s knowledge, empathy and training has led her to become a mentor for newly hired operators, as well as an active participant in different committees designed to improve efficiencies and operations at the monitoring station, Ostrowski describes.
“Pat is constantly cheering on her team members and telling them that they are doing a great job — inspiring them to treat each customer as a family member. Pat uses her skills as a team mentor to encourage and help new hires to reach their fullest potential, coaching and providing positive feedback to operators who are trying to learn a difficult job,” the company shared in its TMA Excellence Awards application.
In addition to mentoring, Fody serves as an example to her peers by being a positive role model. According to Ostrowski, Fody adjusts her schedule at a moment’s notice to accommodate whatever needs arise within the department. She often works extra hours to cover for call outs and switches shifts with others when she is able. If a need arises within the department, Fody is one of the first to step up and bring it to the attention of the managers.
In one instance of many during Fody’s tenure, she received a burglar alarm signal. Fody verified that the woman on the scene was safe and helped her disarm the alarm system. During the conversation, the customer mentioned that her daughter was upstairs. Fody became concerned because the daughter had not come down to check on the blaring alarm or help disarm the system. Upon Fody’s urging, the customer went upstairs and knocked on her daughter’s bedroom door, but got no response. An ambulance was dispatched, as the daughter had collapsed, and she would spend time in intensive care before making a full recovery. The customer later called back to thank Fody and express appreciation that Fody had urged her to check on her daughter.
“This job is a great fit for me. I enjoy talking to people and if I can help them at the same time I enjoy that. You don’t often hear from a customer, but when you do, it makes it all worthwhile to know that you helped someone. I’ve been here since 2010 and I wouldn’t change it,” Fody shares.
Learn About the Finalists
Outbound dispatcher for ADT, Duane Hilton, has been with the company for almost two decades. Hilton treats every alarm like the real thing, which not only motivates and boosts morale of his peers, but also saves lives. In August 2017, Hilton received a carbon monoxide signal from a customer’s home. Hilton contacted 911 for dispatch and also reached the homeowner to advise them to evacuate the home. Due to Hilton’s quick and effective handling of the call, the family was able to escape potentially harmful carbon monoxide fumes being emitted from a faulty pool heater in the basement.
Linda Reed, second shift supervisor at Dynamark Monitoring, has been with the company for more than six years, beginning as a central station operator. During her tenure, Reed has shown a can-do attitude: volunteering to fill in shifts when need be, constantly bringing attention to accounts that are affecting the performance of her group, rewarding operators for a job well done, and engaging staff in learning games to help them elevate their skills. Always focusing on ways to improve, Reed even helped develop Dynamark’s current training program. According to the company, Reed’s positivity and caring attitude inspire employees and customers alike.
Support Person of the Year
Beth Bailey always puts herself in both operators’ and customers’ shoes.
Winner: Beth Bailey
Company: ADT, Boca Raton, Fla.
Title: Process Excellence Senior Manager
Tenure at the company: 20 years
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Since ADT and Protection 1 merged in 2016, there has been the daunting task of policy and process harmonization for the combined company. Beth Bailey, process excellence senior manager at ADT, plays a significant role in this process and her dedication is one of the reasons this 20-year ADT veteran was named TMA’s 2018 Monitoring Center Support Person of the Year.
“This harmonization couldn’t have been done without Beth’s diligence, her knowledge of all of our policies and her thought leadership,” says Michael Picciola, vice president customer care operations at ADT.
With the merger of these two large security companies, the integration process has taken two years. Under Bailey’s leadership, the process excellence team has dedicated hundreds of hours of meeting time toward process and policy harmonization — indeed 616 processes and policies have had to be blended, according to Picciola.
Perhaps one of Bailey’s biggest strengths is her deep understanding that her job impacts ADT customer care employees on the front lines, and ultimately, the customers and their lives.
“I really enjoy finding ways of taking the customer experience to the next level and I can focus on that by taking the experience to our employees. Success to me is when I can make it easier and remove any barriers for team members so they can focus on their priorities and what they do best for our customers,” Bailey tells SDM.
Another example of Bailey’s impact at ADT is the development of an internal central station knowledge base tool called MyHC or My Help Center. What began as an idea three years ago is now a fully functional system for customer care processes, policies and product information used every day on every call by monitoring staff, says Picciola.
But that is not the only change Bailey has ushered in to her company. During her tenure, Bailey has mentored, led, supported and even invented. In 2016, Bailey and a co-worker earned ADT U.S. Patent #9424737 for their work on an interface that would allow customers to respond to an alarm using a cell phone or tablet. Customers can be notified of alarm condition through their mobile interface, and respond back, sending authorization and status directly to the central station — allowing for quicker response time and potentially reducing false alarm dispatches and potential fines to ADT and its customers.
“For me, it is another example of Beth looking at a customer pain point and business performance issue and combining those things to solve a problem,” Picciola says. “Beth never loses sight of taking care of our customers and putting herself in agents’ shoes. She has a special blend of unique skills, high energy and compassion that make her so valuable. Beth knows her decisions are not just impacting our agents, but also our entire customer base, their premises and network.”
Learn About the Finalists
For the past eight years, Boris Pejic, senior system support analyst at G4S Secure Integration, has supported customers in the field remotely to resolve issues with their systems. According to the company, Pejic is a hard worker who proactively helps customers resolve issues before they escalate. In one example, Pejic worked with his team internally and the field staff to ensure a customer’s sites were up and sending signals before leaving for the day, even spending Christmas Eve working to ensure that the customer had what they needed and that the monitoring center was receiving alarms properly.
Lamar Shroyer has been director of IT at Dynamark Monitoring for seven years. According to the company, Shroyer set up Dynamark’s IT infrastructure from nothing to a UL, FM central station, continuously adding and upgrading over the years for a central station that now processes more than two million signals per month. Shroyer has a “never-say-no” attitude, providing dealers with technical support, along with supporting operators, supervisors and executive staff on signal issues, new technology training or IT issues. When one dealer had a regional failure with a telecom carrier, Shroyer assisted the local representative in rerouting all of the lines to other pathways to bring all of the dealer’s customers back online.