ADT announces 'Custom Home Gold'

BOCA RATON, Fla.--Aiming to tap the upscale homeowner market, ADT announced Jan. 8 a new national program called ADT Custom Home Gold Service that features integrated security and home automation systems, all delivered with white-glove service. Tim McKinney, director of ADT Custom Home Services said, with the "emergence of mass affluence," ADT saw "a great opportunity in this market to be a national premier provider for this space." In the works for some time, the initial rollout began 16 months ago. ADT took its time recruiting and training personnel for the program and now has Custom Home Gold dedicated sales and installation personnel in all of its major metropolitan offices across the country and a staff of dedicated central station employees located at its Kansas City, Mo., monitoring station. Gold customers' special perks include: an 800 number and email address to get "any question answered 24-7," and "same-day and next-day service." All systems are individually designed for the homeowner. Products are a la carte and include traditional security services as well as video services. Video is of particular interest in this demographic, McKinney said. Customers like to "take a look at their beach house ... and be able to transport video in a streaming security-encrypted environment. We are seeing a lot of take on that right now." ADT is targeting the new, and retrofit markets, and homeowners seeking to upgrade their systems. McKinney wouldn't divulge a time frame, but said ADT will likely announce "down the road" partnerships with national companies to strengthen offerings to Gold customers.