Dealer plan targets rental market

NEEDHAM, Mass. - A provider of home security products designed for renters has launched a dealer program to enable installers to tap into this underserved market. The program, unveiled in June by the TriGuard Group, provides dealers with a wireless security system called the TriGuard Advantage. Unlike other wireless systems, it features a control panel that plugs into a telephone jack and electrical outlet, but is portable should the renter move. For TriGuard, the program addition is a move away from working with the end-user market but a move toward focusing on the dealer chan-nel. A recently launched program with AT&T to offer telephone customers a self-installed security sy-stem is now being phased out, said Pam Layton, president and chief executive officer of the TriGuard Group. Through TriGuard’s dealer program, dealers continue to own each account. An added revenue stream is generated for both the dealer and TriGuard through a false alarm reduction service known as the TriGuard Security Gateway. TThe The gateway is a server that looks up customers profiles and contacts up to five items on the customers list, such as a cell phone, pager or telephone, to let a customer know there’s an alarm. The expected end result is fewer false alarms. “It enables the dealer to sell a new product,” said Layton. “It puts the management of security back into the customer’s hand. They can be in control of it.” Though the program just launched, Layton said a number of dealers have already signed on. Within six months, she expects 200 dealers to be on board. Bob Maclay, who owns Global Security Technologies in Coral Springs, Fla., is among the first group of dealers to become part of TriGuard’s program. Already he is working with a number of large-scale rental communities to offer the security system to all tenants. At the end of June, Maclay expected to complete a deal with a 400-unit rental property in Florida, where the property owner will offer the turn-key security system to tenants. Within the next 12 months, he expects to sign on 3,000 to 4,000 new customers as a result of the program.