Dealer learns to sell video

GULFPORT, Miss.--As dealers seek out opportunities to tap into added revenue, video monitoring is part of the solution. Earlier this year, more than 100 dealers attended SentryNet's dealer conference in Tunica, Miss., which examined ways to sell and market the service. Already, All Safe Technologies, an installation dealer for the central station, adopted video monitoring for car dealership customers. However, with the company's composition of 65-percent residential and 35-percent commercial, the move toward video monitoring has taken time. All Safe, which serves the Gulf Coast area, predicts the rebuild necessary because of the hurricanes that ripped through the region last year will lead to new installations, not retrofits, which can make video monitoring an easier sell. "You take a device like two-way voice, which has been around for quite a while on an activation. Video monitoring is the next step," said Ray Hightower, general manager at All Safe Technologies. Adding, "You can tell someone they don't have to have the personnel sitting in front of a monitor, monitoring 24 hours." With a video monitoring application, when the system is active, it actually goes through the central station. The central station has the ability to handle that aspect for you, he said. Hightower said implementing video monitoring in car lots has helped to decrease false alarms for those clients by offering a clearer picture of the area and showing what really transpired at the location such as, "was it an employee on the lot, or actually someone who shouldn't be there." He admits this application can be a little more costly, "but it is one more step in combating our video surveillance factors, so the end user doesn't have to bear all the costs involved."Although it is a relatively new service for dealers to promote, Hightower said how it is being presented to the end user will determine its future. "I would say that within the next year to five years it is going to be the new kid on the block."