During the end of the third quarter of 2013, residential security provider Monitronics International, Inc., announced its plan to acquire Security Networks, an alarm security company based in Florida. Security Networks had nearly 300 employees; 225 dealers; and more than 200,000 customer accounts. Monitronics’ executive leadership team aimed to complete this acquisition by:
- Creating and training specialized teams at Monitronics to replicate Security Networks’ job functions using their platforms while simultaneously integrating all 200,000 Security Networks’ accounts into the Monitronics’ customer platform (an entirely different platform).
- Closing the two call center locations (housed in West Palm Beach and Kissimmee) and moving the nearly 300 jobs to Dallas by the end of the first quarter of 2014.
To assist with this ambitious initiative, Training was tasked with three major goals:
- Learn, document, and train existing Security Networks’ policies and procedures and platforms to select teams from eight major departments in Dallas.
- Determine, document, and train on any differences in policies and procedures (including differences in contractual agreements, alarm system offerings, etc.) for all Security Networks’ customers migrated into the Monitronics’ platform.
- Staff up the Monitronics’ call centers by training several additional new hire classes so that the company could manage the Security Networks’ customer base previously handled by 300 Security Networks’ employees.
Program Details
First, after traveling to Florida to learn and write procedures that were not previously documented, the Training team taught (within three months) 16 classes to 156 Monitronics employees from eight different departments (one-quarter of the existing call center staff). This initiative involved a total of 3,568 training hours dedicated to teaching Monitronics’ employees how to use four new platforms and perform 62 new processes, all of which were documented in participant guides of up to 59 pages of step/action charts and corresponding diagrams and screenshots. The skills assessments conducted during these training yielded an average score that was 6 percent above the target. Upon completion of these classes, Security Networks/Monitronics was able to save money by ceasing all hiring of temporary staff to manage their call volume.
Second, the migration of Security Networks’ customers to Monitronics resulted in 22 newly created policies and/or updates to existing procedures and a systematic, detailed communication campaign (involving 23 separate communications) to the call center staff ensuring their preparation for the day in which all Security Networks’ customers were rerouted to Monitronics. To minimize confusion among the Monitronics’ staff, the Training team created a dedicated page within the company online help system to house all Security Networks-related communications and policies. Additionally, the team designed a Security Networks’ icon that was featured on the home page of the online help system to ensure continued awareness and ease of use. Simultaneously, the remaining Training team members were tasked with the increased Monitronics new hire staffing efforts. At any given time five of the nine trainers were in class either training new Monitronics employees or teaching Security Networks’ content.
Results
These efforts contributed to the 200,000 Security Networks’ customers experiencing no blackout periods in their service. In addition, the successful completion of this acquisition resulted in a $482.9 million cash deal, an increase in subscriber accounts 45.2 percent year-over-year, a net revenue increase of 33 percent, and Monitronics reaching a major milestone of now serving more than 1 million customers—a critical organizational goal.
