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IASG to close PSI call center

IASG to close PSI call center

Monitoring operations to be consolidated into existing centers ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - In a move to streamline operations with recently acquired Protection Service Industries, Integrated Alarm Services Group has notified employees that it will close PSI’s call center here by March. IASG purchased Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based PSI and its parent company, Lane Security Inc., late last year. Joseph Reinhart, IASG’s director of investment relations, said the center’s operations and more than 70,000 accounts will be consolidated into the company’s existing centers in New Jersey, Minnesota and California. “It’s unfortunate when you have to consolidate, but that’s the business world these days,” he said. “It’s important to have redundancy, but you also have an important need for critical mass and economies of scale. Frankly the PSI call center in Albuquerque didn’t have a large number of subscribers with it, so it made sense to consolidate it.” As part of the meetings held with the 90 affected employees, IASG offered them the opportunity to relocate. Reinhart said about 10 to 15 percent expressed an interest, but he was not sure how many would actually take the company up on its offer. “It’s easy to express interest, but it’s a different thing when it’s time to leave your family in Albuquerque and go somewhere else,” he said. “The econ-omy is picking up, and having qualified and trained people and also having the benefit of people who know the cultures of the company is always very useful. We’re excited that there was that level of interest.” Bill Romano, PSI’s director of sales and marketing, said other PSI operations in Albuquerque should go unchanged. “As far as sales, service, installations and commercial growth, it would make sense and it’s probably safe to say that that will stay the same there with PSI,” he said. “All service and operations personnel should still remain. We should still maintain the service presence.” Because of IASG’s strength in central station operations, Romano said, some changes were bound to occur with the Albuquerque center, which PSI opened in the mid-1990s, after the acquisition. “If they’re going to leverage efficiencies and drive profit, [the call center] would be the very first place to look, simply because that is what they do,” Romano said. Reinhart said IASG has been happy with the blending of the two companies since the acquisition. “We’re very pleased with the way the integration is going in the first month or so, and we’re looking forward to continued dogged progress in the integration as well as the capitalizing on the business,” he said. “It takes IASG into the commercial marketplace and it further strengthens our presence in the West and Southwestern United States.”

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