Safety first: Datasquirt helps improve security response times and increase guard welfare at New Zealand’s largest welfare agency.
ADT secures welfare staff: Security experts use CONTACT to automate checks on guards at a large welfare agency.
Maintaining communications with a workforce scattered the length and breadth of the country can be challenging at the best of times, but when those workers could potentially find themselves subject to physical violence, staying in regular contact is essential. For international security company ADT, keeping its guards safe is an extremely high priority.
When improved contact is combined with increased productivity and significant cost savings you have a success story, and it’s one that is now being rolled out to other parts of ADT’s business.
Switching from voice calls to an automated SMS messaging system has paid off almost immediately for the New Zealand branch of the firm. The company uses Datasquirt’s contact management solution CONTACT™ to automate its hourly welfare checks on guards deployed at New Zealand’s largest welfare agency. The Department of Work and Income (WINZ) has offices throughout the country, managing a wide range of benefits and pensions as well as providing job placement services and community programmes.
Reducing risks to staff
Martyn Miller, the ADT manager of welfare, dispatch, noise control manager and manned services help desks, says regular welfare checks are necessary because guards are at heightened risk. “They are there to act as adeterrent and to protect WINZ personnel.People can become very disgruntled when they do not receive what they believe they are entitled to."
He says that in the past WINZ guards were expected to phone the company every hour on the hour. Now they send text-message codes to let ADT know their current status.
Miller says ADT normally carries out between 72,000 and 92,000 welfare checks each month; the number rising to 100,000 in December. So switching from voice calls to text messages, which are cheaper, delivered immediate cost savings to the company’s phone bill. That was only the start of the benefits. He says because CONTACT automates message handling, fewer contact centre staff are needed to handle the incoming texts, which also means lower costs. To aid administration, guard rosters are programmed into CONTACT, allowing ADT’s human resource department to collect information directly from the system.
In the past WINZ guards were expected to phone the company every hour on the hour. Now they send text-message codes to let ADT know their current status.
The speed of the SMS system also means guards are safer. Automatic processing of SMS messages takes considerably less time, so when something exceptional occurs, the company can respond faster.
Working smarter
More recently, ADT has extended its use of CONTACT and SMS messaging to improve the way it responds to noise complaints on behalf of several Auckland Councils. Here SMS technology has replaced a system where faxes were sent out in batches, boosting the company’s ability to respond to nuisance calls, report back on the results of its actions and monitor performance.
Miller says noise control staff are contacted every few minutes when they are on the premises dealing with a complaint – these events have the potential to get nasty very quickly. “Now we work a lot smarter and we’re able to identify where there are roadblocks,” he says.
ADT is now in the process of rolling out its CONTACT-based SMS guard monitoring system to security patrols who respond to alarms and the company’s cash couriers who transport large sums of money.
Key solution features/benefits
- Improved contact means improved safety
- Significant cost reductions by working smarter
- Greater productivity by better job allocation
- Simplified administration and performance management.
About ADT
ADT New Zealand is a subsidiary of Tyco Fire and Security and is part of the world’s largest electronic security business. The company’s range of products and services include guards and patrols, alarm systems and integrated security applications which link access control, CCTV, electronic article surveillance and source-tagging systems. In New Zealand, the company provides security for some of the nation’s largest properties and retail outlets, as well as government buildings and healthcare facilities. ADT also supplies contracted security services to local government bodies. For more information please visit www.adtsecurity.co.nz
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