Should we support self-mailers?

When Micro Key moved from a DOS to a Windows platform back in the late 90's, we could not fully support the legacy dot-matrix style self-mailers that some customers had come to know and love.  Our customers were forced to use laser printers and go back to folding and stuffing invoices.

Recently, we have identified a vendor who creates very nice self-mailers that can be printed on specific laser printers.  The samples I received are very appealing and will surely reduce the amount of labor necessary to do traditional printing and stuffing.

Before we put a lot of effort into supporting this output format, I wanted to see who, if any, of our customers would be interested in this type of printed output.  If your company would have an interest in laser printed self-mailers would you please make a comment on this blog post so I can determine if we should proceed with this project?

Thanks for you help,
Wayne

The following comment was sent to me from Rick Lawrence of Centro Print Solutions our partner for self mailers.

Our experience with a wide range of clients over numerous industry confirms that laser self mailers is a terrific tool in the right application. We welcome the opportunity to consult with your users and evaluate their billing processes to discover if Print to Mail is a good fit for their organization.    

Rick Lawrence

ISC West 2010 a Great Success

Whether you were an attendee or exhibitor, I sure hope ISC West 2010 was as successful for you as it was for Micro Key Solutions. Considering the economy, attendance at our booth was better than expected. We served more beer on Wednesday in celebration of our 25th Anniversary than anticipated, and the entire experience exceeded our expectations. We met so many interesting people and gave numerous product demonstrations. Visitors experiencing our solutions for the first time agreed that the Millennium Series™ Modules would assist them in reducing expenses, increasing recurring monthly revenue and growing their businesses.

Let us know your thoughts about this year’s show. What new products interested you? Which booth was the most informative? What was missing? What can Micro Key do to make our booth for next year even more relevant for you? How about letting us hear from you? We sure would like to get feedback from our prospects and customers!

Social Media-Help or Hype?

Being an active member of CSAA (Central Station Alarm Association) and sitting on a few of their boards I am now part of the Social Media subcommittee. CSAA is offering a number of free Webinars throughout the year that are open to members and non-members. The first is titled "Social Media-Help or Hype?". This is an area that each and every Security Company and/or Central Station should become involved to some degree. It is like free or almost free advertising depending on if you do it yourself or if you hire someone to do it for you. I might have titled the webinar something like "Five Ways to Boost Your Company Image with Social Media". Here are the details and how to sign up.

Sign-up to Attend CSAA’s First Free Webinar of 2010

Social Media-Help or Hype?

You are invited to participate in the first Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) webinar of 2010 on February 17, 2010 2:00pm-3:00pm ET!

Find out how Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Wikis are being successfully used by companies outside and inside the alarm industry. Find out how you and your company can take advantage of these tools to increase your company’s visibility in the marketplace and improve performance.

The panelists are:

Moderator: Wanda Valenteen, Central Station Manager, The Protection Bureau
Presenters: Cheryl Perez, Director of Marketing, Alarm Detection Systems, Inc. (LinkedIn)
Melissa M. Courville, Client Services & Head of Marketing, Dice Corporation (Facebook)
Jennifer Bruce, Account Executive, The Bold Group (Twitter)
Celia Besore, Vice President of Marketing & Programs, Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) (Wikis)

Reserve your free Webinar seat here now or at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/290008851.

I also found an article you may find interesting on the subject if you are not yet convinced to attend.
http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2010/02/01/what-inbound-marketing-is-and-why-you-should-have-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SocialMediaExplorer+%28Social+Media+Explorer%29

The Future of Alarm Verification

Video verification has become more an more popular in recent years with the advent of No Response policies and Enhanced Call Verification (see CSAA's CS-V-01 Verification Standard).

Two call verification has proven to cut down on false dispatches but video verification adds a whole new dimension to the verification process. Why is video better than making multiple calls? There are several reasons that I have heard but the best one goes like this.

"911 Dispatch, what is your emergency?"

"This is Dispatcher 123 at ABC Central Station. I have an interior burglar alarm at 123 Main Street on the North side executive office."

"I have video of two males wearing baseball caps and shorts in the building."

What type of priority do you think that alarm will receive verses one that has no video?

Micro Key has had integration with OZVision, ADPRO and Image Vault for years now and a few others but none of them are totally cordless and wireless.

Then there is Videofied, a wireless, cordless, indoor or outdoor video verified alarm system.

I personally really like this stuff. You can now have a video verification solution in places you cannot run phone lines or wires to sensors. It can be leased to home builders for temporary installations or can be permanently installed if needed. Oops, did I mention that it runs on batteries that can last up to four years?

To view videos of actual apprehensions visit www.intrusionvideos.com. If you look through the videos you will begin to understand what Videofied is (a great tool for faster police response) and what it is not (a surveillance system). Videofied is about apprehensions and priority police response.

Several Micro Key customers have been using the Videofied solution successfully. Here are a few of the comments I received from our customers.

"We were able to implement the system in 1 week. The integration and set-up is simple and quick. The support is fantastic, it’s like you’re their only customer. The training time is minimal. The results have been amazing!"

“We have been using the Videofied system interfaced with the Microkey Millennium Central Station product for well over a year now and have found the Videofied solution easy to implement, easy to monitor, and very successful at reducing false alarm dispatches on outdoor security systems.

The product easily fits into our monitoring routine and the interface is so user-intuitive that the training time to ensure operator competency was virtually non-existent. Our customers have been very impressed with the results they are seeing from the system as well. Overall, it’s a hit with the customers, the monitoring staff and Central Station Management! I call that a win/win/win situation!”

SAAS - Software As a Service

What is SAAS? Imagine you could kiss your IT nightmares goodbye and the only thing you needed to run your business is an internet connection and a basic PC.

All of your critical business applications are hosted on servers miles away that are backed up automatically by the hosting company.

All software upgrades are done on the server level by your hosting company in addition to firewalls and backup power.

There are many mass market applications that are used everyday this way. SalesForce.com reports having over 6,800 companies using their hosted solution (according to their web site).

As SAAS continues to get traction in many industries. Micro Key Solutions is evaluating when this type of technology will be adopted by the Burglar Alarm Industry. Would you be willing to make the change to reduce your IT costs?

Wireless Technology-Where is it Going?

In the software development world there are many technology paths a company can take. As a software company, can we develop for all the current technologies? Not Likely. Do we just pick one direction and stick with it to the end and hope that we selected the best, most accepted technology? There is always the chance that something will come along that is better than the current technology before we finish.

In the Security Alarm Industry there are a lot of different needs and or desires for technology. I am going to focus on the Wireless and Web aspect. WebView was our first browser based application allowing alarm dealers access to their client information similar to the Dealer Client which allows the same functionality using an installed application on the Dealer's computer. Now web pages and applications are being developed for mobile devices such as Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and the iPhone.

I would be interested in hearing what you think. It seems to me that the iPhone is where things are at today. Hey, I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon myself for personal and professional use. Is development for mobile devices the future of technology? Do you think the iPhone craze will last? Please add your thoughts or comments below.

The Future of Central Station Automation

I am frequently asked where I see the future of Central Station Monitoring going. It is pretty clear that creating one user interface for a Central Station Operator is key to increasing efficiency, and therefore, controlling costs. Looking much further into the future I see where alarm panels will contain all critical information that we currently store at the central station. I will leave that conversation for a later post, so keep checking back.

Central Stations are dealing with multiple technologies to keep up with competitors, in addition to differentiating themselves from their competition. The list is long: Video Verification, Video Guard Tour, Managed Access Control, Personal Emergency Response (PERS), Vehicle (Fleet) Management, etc. If the central station staff needed to be trained on all these different systems that are running independently you would need to hire a higher caliber employee and you would probably need more staff to manage the multiple systems. I hear all the time about the computer in the corner that makes noise that no one in the central wants to have to deal with.

Micro Key Solutions will continue to work in the direction of providing solutions that will run under one user interface.

Until Next Time

Wayne