From as early as the 1990s, scholars have been challenging so-called traditional marketing practises – including the well-known traditional marketing mix, or four Ps – proposing a paradigm shift towards what has become known as relationship marketing.
Unlike traditional marketing, relationship marketing seeks to establish two-way communication between marketers and their assorted target audiences, and craft messages that talk to the audience and not at them.
While this sort of marketing was considered revolutionary at the time, it has since become the norm for businesses to add real value to their clients’ lives, and not merely bombard them with vacuous marketing messages aimed at hard-selling products and/or services.
In 1993, John Lauterborn proposed four Cs to replace the four Ps (product, price, place and promotion) of the traditional marketing mix, and to act as a framework for a relationship marketing approach.
The four Cs are:
- Consumer
- Cost
- Convenience
- Communication
So, the question remains, how can you, as an installer of access automation, add real value to the lives of your customers?
With the holidays coming up, you once again have the opportunity to swoop in and save the day with your dual superpowers of security and convenience. Below, we’ve listed 5 ways that you can make your client’s life easier over the Festive Season.
- Show them how to enable Holiday Lockout Mode
Holiday Lockout Mode is an innovative security feature included on all CENTURION D-Series gate motors, including the D5-Evo and D10. Essentially, this high-security mode enables the user to electronically “lock down” the gate motor, so that only the remote that invoked the mode is able to access the system, i.e. open the gate. This is especially useful in instances where there are multiple access holders (for example domestic staff), but the homeowner might not necessarily want them to be able to enter the property when they’re not around.
- Tell them about time-barring
Closely related to Holiday Lockout Mode, time-barring will make your client’s life even easier by adding temporal intelligence. Using the onboard ChronoGuard timer technology found on all D-Series gate motors, your client will be able to set up “time windows” during which the selected input(s), for example remote controls, will be disabled. For example, the homeowner can set it up so that remote controls are disabled from the moment that he leaves on vacation, and then automatically re-enabled upon his return.
- Let them take peace of mind with them
While going away on holiday is undoubtedly an exciting affair, the attendant anxiety over leaving one’s home unattended can suck the joy right out of even the most tranquil of settings. But what if there was a way for your client to leave her home without actually leaving it?
With GSM devices such as CENTURION’s G-ULTRA, your client can intelligently, and remotely, monitor and control a plethora of appliances back home – all using their mobile phone. They can, for example, arm an alarm or switch on outside lights with a missed call, or receive SMS notifications when the electric fence is triggered or their electric gate is opening.
- Protect their gate motor with a theft-resistant cage…
With gate motor theft on the rise, your client might be concerned that she’ll return from her getaway to find her entrance gate sans automation. Put her mind at ease by fitting a sturdy and robust theft-resistant cage from Centurion Systems. We recently made a number of improvements to the design of the cage, making for a truly formidable deterrent against criminal tampering.
- …and a battery saver
CENTURION gate motors are natively power failure-proof in that they continue to run reliably on battery backup even in the event that mains power is absent. However, if the power outage is particularly lengthy, and especially if the gate motor is still under heavy use (your client might run a business that continues to operate over weekends and public holidays), the battery can discharge to the point of being damaged.
Additionally, during a power failure, components such as the electronic controller, co-installed safety beams, keypads, etc., continue to draw power and, with no mains present to recharge the battery, it is put under excessive strain.
The battery saver, which is available as a stock item from Centurion Systems, is connected in-line with the battery and will automatically disconnect it from the load circuitry once the threshold voltage has been reached. Then, once mains has been restored, the battery will be “reconnected”.
