Dealers take a listen

BOCA RATON, Fla.-- Dealers of Central One, a full service UL-listed monitoring station, can now tap into voice recordings in real time using the Internet or a PDA device, thanks to a customized recording system implemented by the central. A dealer can listen to a customer's interaction with the central station, learn what type of issue is happening and solve the problem efficiently. The system takes away the phone call to the central that the dealer used to have to make to be informed about an issue. Dealers can get answers to customers instantaneously. "Some alarm companies don't like to emphasize the fact that they are subcontracting their monitoring," said Mike Mcintosh, vice president at Central One. "It gives the dealer the illusion of being the central station because they are able to access to voice recordings." The central wanted to create an effective solution to the problem of " give me a list of all the recordings that occurred from the time the alarm signal was received to the time it was completed that were outbound calls to any number on the contact list for this account," Mcintosh said as it was tedious to gather the documentation. The inception of the system took about three months. And beta testing was only a day. The Wygant recording system came with a limited amount of retrievable search capabilities. The central station engineered the system to include security features on how to query records from a central station alarm log, Mcintosh added. The system enables a dealer to virtually be in the central station and to see everything. "The more information we make available at the dealers' fingertips, the more helpful the dealer is to the customer. Because when a customer calls its dealer, they want immediate answers," he said. When Central One introduced the system to its 400 dealers dotted throughout the country dealers were excited about the system. "Some congratulated us on our willingness to put our work on display," he said. "If we do something wrong, it is being recorded. One of the dealers said they have a new found respect that we 'lay it on the line'." All dealers are participating in the program, Mcintosh said. "Some use it more than others. We have a couple dealers that listen to all of the calls, to do everything possible for their customers."