“It’s hard to argue with 70 percent
growth year over year,” said Raab.
Defender has been in business for
11 years. It sold 100,000 accounts
in 2008 and is “well over a 10,000
run rate per month” this year, Raab
said. “We feel like this philosophy
is the core of our success and what
drives that kind of growth.” The
program has grown organically over
the years, and includes in-house
training and events, formal programs
that are outsourced, reading certain
books, volunteer programs “and
some fun things,” Raab said. Some
of the formal programs Defender
employees attend include Dave
Ramsey’s Financial Peace University
and Truth at Work Academy with
Ray Hilbert. Defender runs its own
Time Management Workshop.

Sending employees to these kinds of training programs may not be

that unusual, but it’s generally done “with a top down mentality,” Raab said. “Companies will send C-level employees, and expect they’ll wave a magic wand over everyone else. We take a ground-up approach.

In their third year of employment, employees are selected to attend a Leadership Day with Defender president Dave Lindsey. During these all-day offsite meetings, a group of 25 to 30 people

“sit down with Dave and discuss his philosophy on how to build a business,” she said. It’s something a lot of business executives would love to be able to do, Raab said. In the fourth year, employees and a guest are sent on a volunteer trip to build homes in Mexico.

Other “fun stuff” includes a family day at a theme park. Defender has 160 offices around the country. Those employees can take their

families to local theme parks. Books include: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; You, the Owner’s Manual, by Oz/ Roizen; and The YES! Attitude, by Jeffrey Gitomer.

In addition to building great employees, the program helps with retention. Raab, who also runs the sales program, said she “hasn’t lost an employee that I didn’t want to lose for the past four years.” SSN

you to sell them your accounts. You put all this work into gaining a customer’s confidence and then you have to sell the account. That customer’s lost forever,” Riley said. Riley’s staff has gone through products and sales training. He called residential sales and installation “a whole new ballgame” compared to commercial jobs. Smith & Wesson has a “bible” that outlines protocol for interacting with residential customers: “They tell you how to act, what to say, how to dress, even what your vehicle should look like, all the way down the line. It’s pretty well thought out.” SSN Continued from page 28 S&W leads

 

for an available technician, with the right skillset, in the geographic area and notify him to take the appointment.

“From the customer service standpoint, [customer service reps] can take care of everything in one place. The billing, service scheduling, alarm signals are all on the same screen.” Typically, a customer service rep would have to transfer a customer to a different department, or navigate around the computer system to perform these different tasks.

Hwang said the program will make the customer service department more efficient, and will enable field service engineers to handle more jobs “due to more efficient route scheduling, less time spent driving.” That will also mean lower fuel use.

The program automatically places reminder calls to customers and uses GPS tracking to notify customers within a narrow time frame when the technician will arrive at their home.

With real-time scheduling, “the customer can pop out and run an errand and know he won’t miss the technician,” said Simon Morris, ClickSoftware’s director of marketing. This makes customers happy and ensures that when Apx spends the $250 or so it costs to roll a truck, that the customer will be there. SSN

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