Exclusive: RSPNDR’s role in revolutionising alarm response technology

Kevin Meagher, General Manager (Europe) at RSPNDR reveals how the company is revolutionising alarm response.

Can you tell us about RSPNDR please?

We’re a Canadian company that formed just four years ago. In that short time, we’ve become the largest alarm response company in Canada with hundreds of thousands of customers and partnerships with leading security companies including ADT, Chubb and many others. We’ve expanded into the US where, in addition to supporting traditional security companies, we are supporting smart home and DIY systems and partnered Amazon to offer mobile patrol response for the new Ring Pro. 

We are excited to now bring our services to the UK and European market where we’re launching with our first customer, G4S Monitoring, in November 2021.

Where did the idea come from to launch RSPNDR?

Our Founders and management team are serial entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of the traditional security market. They saw that customers were finding it increasingly difficult to justify the cost of alarms and monitoring when there were no effective response services. High false alarm rates meant the police would not react and the security industry’s attempt to address this simply increased the cost and complexity of systems which in turn, choked sales. The Founders of RSPNDR set about solving this problem.

How is RSPNDR revolutionising alarm response?

We have completely reinvented alarm response services. Our Uber-like platform links into monitoring stations to access alarm events and pass them to our national network of mobile patrol partners. The process is automated so a monitoring station can dispatch a patrol with the click of a button. Like Uber, we provide guard companies with a management platform and apps so we can quickly identify and task the nearest guard, direct them to the site and manage the response process.

The benefits of our technology and business models are significant. In Canada, our average response time is just 26 minutes and when we launch in the UK in November, we will guarantee customers a 30-minute response or the call-out will be free.

We will also dramatically reduce the cost of response services and make them much more affordable. For domestic customers, a typical homeowner will pay less than £2/week with up to two free callouts per year; small businesses will typically cost just £6/week. This will give guard companies access to a new market that will help sales, whilst monitoring stations and installers will generate new, recurring revenue streams.    

How do you see the network evolving over the next 12 months?

When we launch, our service is focused on getting a security officer to the site as quickly as possible to conduct an external inspection and report back through the monitoring centre to the customer.  In the next 12 months, we will expand the service to include key holding, but again, we will reinvent the traditional business model by placing interactive lock boxes at a site so we can grant access using digital keys that we send to the patrol through our apps.

Once this is in place, we will start to develop a diverse range of new services that include everything from holiday checks, supervising access for visits, or shutting off the water supply in the event of leak. The list is endless and stretches well beyond security into smart homes and cities.

For more information, visit: www.rspndr.io

This article was originally published in the November 2021 edition of International Security Journal. Pick up your FREE digital edition here