By Jake Voll, SS&Si Dealer Network
In our industry, support is often treated like a back-office function. But the companies that win long term will be the ones that make support faster, easier, and more useful after the install is complete.
In a recent Friday morning “Coffee Break with Jake” conversation, Frontpoint COO Derek Carder shared a practical playbook for doing exactly that.
Learning From The DIY Model
A lot of traditional alarm companies look at the DIY space and see a model they deliberately chose not to follow. Although a fair position to take, it does not mean there is nothing to learn from it.
Whether a system is professionally installed or self-installed, the customer still needs help after the sale. When almost inevitably that help is hard to get, slow to arrive, or overly complicated, the customer experience suffers.
A Customer-First Mindset
That is what made my conversation with Derek Carder, COO of Frontpoint, so relevant for security dealers and integrators. Derek did not come up through the traditional security industry track.
His background includes Zappos and Geotab, and that outside perspective shows up in the way he thinks about operations.
He starts with the customer journey, not the org chart. He looks for friction first, then builds systems to remove it.
Leaders Should Experience Support
One of the ideas that stood out most was his insistence that leaders should experience support for themselves. At Zappos, even senior leaders start with customer support training.
Derek has carried that mindset into his current role. He had a Frontpoint system shipped to himself, installed it, called support, and went through training so he could feel the process the way a customer does.
That is simple, but powerful. Too many companies try to fix service by staring at dashboards without ever walking through the experience firsthand.
When Derek joined Frontpoint in late 2021, the support operation was under real strain. Wait times were running 60 to 90 minutes. Customers were getting transferred between departments. Attrition was high. For a DIY company, where support is effectively the substitute for the truck roll, that kind of friction is not a side issue. It is existential.
Balancing Access And Efficiency
The response was not to hide the phone number or force customers through a maze of self-service hoops. In fact, Derek was very clear on that point. Frontpoint did not want to make support harder to reach. The goal was to make simple problems easier to solve while preserving access to a real person when needed. That is an important distinction.
A lot of companies talk about contact deflection as if the objective is to keep the customer away. That is dangerous thinking. If customers cannot get help from you, they will look somewhere else.
Building A Guided Support Model
What Frontpoint built instead was a guided support model rooted in better knowledge management. That means more than posting a few FAQ articles. It means understanding what customers are actually searching for, where they are getting stuck, and how support content can be improved with better pictures, better diagrams, better sequencing, and clearer language. Customers do not always use the same words your technicians use. They are not saying, ‘I have a panel issue.’
They are saying, ‘This thing is beeping at me and it is driving me crazy.’ Companies that pay attention to that difference can design support that actually meets customers where they are.
Using AI The Right Way
This is also where AI becomes useful, but only when used the right way. Derek said something that I think a lot of people in our space need to hear: Frontpoint did not lead with AI. It led with the problem to solve. That is the right approach.
AI is not strategy. It is a tool. Used well, it can help identify gaps in knowledge content, improve support flows, and surface patterns in places where customers get stuck. Used poorly, it just adds another layer of noise.
A Real-World Test Case
One of the strongest examples from the conversation was Frontpoint’s experience during the 3G and 4G sunset. Like much of the industry, the company had a large subscriber base that needed communicator and panel upgrades.
This became the proving ground for its guided support model. The team standardized radio swaps and panel upgrades, built detailed walkthroughs, tested them with real customers, refined the content based on feedback, and even shipped tools when needed.
The lesson was clear: if you design the right guided experience, many customers will absolutely use it. That matters because every successful self-guided upgrade can mean fewer truck rolls, lower service costs, and faster resolution.
Elevating The Role Of Support Teams
Just as important, better support did not reduce the importance of people. It changed where people added value. Instead of answering the same repetitive questions all day, support team members could spend more time on higher-level problems, more advanced automation requests, and continuous improvement of the knowledge base itself. That is not replacement. That is elevation.
The best support people become even more valuable when technology handles repetitive work and gives them the information they need to solve harder issues.
Support As A Driver Of Retention
Another takeaway that deserves attention from traditional dealers is the link between support and retention. Once Frontpoint reduced friction and improved the support journey, it created more room for proactive renewal conversations. That is smart.
A great support interaction is not just a cost to manage. It can be a relationship-building moment. In a business built on recurring revenue and long-term trust, that matters a lot.
What I also found interesting is that Frontpoint is not just thinking about this for its own direct customers. Derek talked about working with dealers and partners that want to modernize support, reduce truck rolls, and keep their brand and local presence intact.
That is a compelling idea for this industry. You do not have to become a DIY company to borrow the best parts of a modern support model. You can still value local technicians, local relationships, and personal service while improving the digital layer that sits in front of them.
Rethinking The Voice Experience
The area Derek identified as especially overdue for improvement was the voice experience. He is right. Across our industry, customers still get stuck in complicated IVRs, repeated verification steps, and handoffs that waste time and test patience.
Smaller companies often rely on a ‘Betsy’ type person who knows every customer and instinctively routes calls the right way. The problem is that Betsy does not scale. The opportunity now is to build a system that preserves that personal feel while making it repeatable and measurable.
The Future Of Support In Security
That may be the biggest takeaway from the conversation. The future of support in security is not about replacing people with bots. It is about using better tools, better knowledge, and better workflows to reduce friction for the customer and increase effectiveness for the team.
In a market where products continue to converge, support may be one of the clearest places left to differentiate. Simply put, the companies that get it right will not just lower costs, they will build loyalty.
Jake Voll is the President at SS&Si Dealer Network and serves in leadership roles in numerous non-profit organizations including Associate Director for ESA and on the Communications Committee for TMA. Jake also has created and hosts public forums like Burglar Alarms Online and Coffee Break with Jake – providing avenues of communication for business owners and security professionals to interactively address important issue facing the industry.
Internal Links
https://security.world/ai-security-operations
https://security.world/security-customer-experience
External Links
https://www.frontpointsecurity.com
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Why Is Support Critical In The Security Industry?
Support directly impacts customer satisfaction, retention, and long-term revenue, especially in subscription-based models.
2. What Is A Guided Support Model?
It is a structured approach that helps customers solve problems through clear instructions, improved knowledge content, and step-by-step workflows.
3. How Does AI Improve Customer Support?
AI helps identify knowledge gaps, optimize support processes, and surface recurring issues, making support more efficient and proactive.
4. Why Should Leaders Experience Support Firsthand?
It provides real insight into customer pain points and helps organizations design better, more user-focused support systems.
5. How Does Better Support Reduce Costs?
Effective self-service and guided support reduce truck rolls, lower call volumes, and improve operational efficiency.
Source: frontpointsecurity.com
https://security.world/artificial-intelligence-real-support/