SentryNet brings back the cruise

PENSACOLA, Fla.—A few weeks away from releasing the second installment of its dealer app, SNapp 2.0, SentryNet, a monitoring company based here, announced it's also doing something else for the second time: booking a Carnival cruise to Cozumel, Mexico, which high-performing dealers can earn tickets to.

For the dealer initiative, called the Countdown to SentryCon Cruise #2, the company created a points-based system whereby dealers earn credit for adding accounts. They are eligible to receive bonus points for using NetConnect, the company's online dealer portal, or for offering enhanced services such as AlarmNet and C24.

Kurt Erdman, national sales manager at SentryNet, said the Cozumel cruise, which it also did in 2011, is about keeping dealers engaged and in synch with the latest SentryNet services.

“We want to encourage dealers to move into the future and streamline process for everyone involved,” Erdman said. “It's something we've done before and something we like to have out there to encourage our people and give our dealers every advantage to be able to accrue those points to go on that cruise.”

While the 2011 cruise countdown brought a spike in business, Erdman and Alain Jamet, vice president of operations at SentryNet, said the gains were hardly out of the ordinary. They define the central station as an “activity hub,” a resource geared to helping dealers promote new products and stay attuned to broader trends in the industry.

“If we aren't keeping dealers actively engaged on the sales side and in terms of managing attrition, I think there would be something wrong with the central station,” Erdman said. “We try to pull [dealers] into some avenues and some directions they haven't gone before, and keep them with all their chambers loaded.”

In a few weeks the company will launch the newest version of its SNapp mobile app, a free tool for dealers that will feature several new “customer-centric” enhancements, according to Jamet. As with the previous iteration, dealers will be able to put accounts online and on test, but they can now update call lists directly from tablets or mobile phones, an important capability that ultimately speeds up the dispatch process, Jamet said.

SentryNet is also building a push notification function into the upgraded version of SNapp. The tool, which acts as a communication bridge between dealers and subscribers, helps dealers touch base with customers and reinforce the value of their service as they see fit, Jamet noted.

“The dealer might have a promotion they want to get out to their subscriber base,” Jamet said. “If subscribers have the push notifications enabled, dealers will be able to broadcast promotions or whatever information they want to get out to their customer base.”

SNapp 2.0 also has a built in geo-tracking functionality, a tool Jamet expects to appeal to technicians and subscribers alike.

Since its inception in 1987, SentryNet has developed and maintained its own in-house automation software. Given the company's need to consistently upgrade its in-house software to stay technologically relevant and compliant with tight UL standards, Erdman has come to think of the company's software engine as “an organic beast.”

“We're always adding services and always trying to keep it at the forefront of what the latest technologies can do,” he said.