Security Pro rolls out niche program for deaf community

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A full service dealer here with a robust contract monitoring business has teamed up with an online community that serves the deaf and hard of hearing market and will roll that offering to other dealers in the GE Security Pro network across the country. Care Security & Monitoring, based here, will be the exclusive monitoring provider for the American Access One Online program, which uses a website, www.aa1online.com, to market home services, such as home security systems, real estate services, banking, insurance services and online pizza delivery orders, to the deaf and hard of hearing. “All projections are that there are 18 million people who are hearing impaired in the country,” said Ellen Smith, vice president of Care Security. “This is a tremendous area that is not being addressed.” Through the home purchasing portion of the website, American Access One is already selling 100 to 150 homes per month, Smith said, with the adjunct services being marketed to the new home buyers, Smith said. Care has already performed a few local installations, with a handful of accounts already online as a result, she said. While Care will receive all leads from the website, the company will only perform installations in its immediate northern Kentucky, southern Indiana and southern Ohio market. It will call on other Security Pro dealers around the country to install the Caddx panels and other equipment, including strobes, sounders and bed shakers, Smith said. Unless the monitoring must be performed locally for some reason, Care will serve as the primary monitoring service provider, but the installing dealer will likely retain partial ownership of the account, said Michael Benedict, GE Security Pro Director. “Care did the preliminary work on this and found that there was a real need for the deaf and hard of hearing,” Benedict said. “It seemed to make a lot of sense to us and fit the model of what we do.” The program will be rolled out to the network’s 275 dealers at the group’s annual conference in June, Benedict said. To equip the company’s central station here for the program, Care updated its 14 computers with additional software that enables it to answer a TTY (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). Care Security has also become a reseller of the TTY software.