DMP dealers can now offer day-to-day monitoring

LAS VEGAS—DMP introduced its new OnDemand Monitoring feature at its April 5 owners' forum.

“What we've created is the ability for the consumer to enable communication to the central station, and disable communication to the central station, on demand,” Mark Hillenburg, executive director of marketing for DMP, told Security Systems News.

The OnDemand Monitoring feature enables end users to define certain windows of time that they would like professional monitoring. Consumers use a browser or the DMP app to define the times.

Hillenburg said OnDemand Monitoring works with any DMP panel, and said, “It's completely compatible with any central station receiving equipment.” People connected to the system get notifications when the monitoring is activated or deactivated.

OnDemand Monitoring could be a lower-cost option for customers who would otherwise cancel their accounts, he said. “They say, 'It's too much, I'm going to cancel my account.' Now this gives [dealers] a bridge.”

“We think, in the end, the consumer [may] eventually opt back into a monthly contract,” he said. Hillenburg said it would be a good starting point for consumers new to monitored alarm systems.

The service had a strong response at the show. “We had a line of dealers at our booth that were ready to sign up.”

“We think that it allows dealers to gain market share with new, Millennial-type customers that aren't interested in long term contracts,” Hillenburg said. Each dealer decides the pay structure for the daily rate of monitoring, he said.

Hillenburg said the system could appeal to consumers outside of the Millennial demographic. “I think that there's probably just additional incremental growth that will happen across the board.”