Brian Hess on Tattletale Portable Alarms

Brain Hess calls in to talk Tattletale and customer service they provide. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Sunny, sunny Sunday afternoon. Welcomeback. What matters Mindy is in that
state up north because of girl softball. They kicked the wolverines. They kicked
the wolverines tush earlier today. Goodfor them, Yeah right, like a
little girl power of north in thatstate up north. Gil Hogan is in
with me today and glad to haveyou here. We're going to talk to

(00:24):
Brian Hess who Gail you've not metbefore, but I have not. But
Brian has a really interesting story.Founded a company called Tattletale Portable Alarm Systems.
I've seen it. It's blown up. It is blown up. So
Brian, you're on the phone withus, say hi to Gail. Hello,
Gail, Brian, pleasure to meetyou. Likewise, Brian, you

(00:46):
know who Gail is, right,he doesn't, he's too young. I
know. There you go, there'sthe Brian. Wait now, yes,
she's been she's she's been a mainstayfor years for US TV radio and she's
doing some work over at OSU andI was telling her, you have you've
built quite a company and in ina fairly short amount of time. When

(01:07):
did you found when did you yes, when were you founding tattletale. Well,
you know, I'm a twenty tofive, maybe a twenty six year
old startup company if you want toknow the truth. Yeah, it really
has been twenty five or twenty sixyears. So, Brian, let me
ask you. I thought this wasa big thing for keeping track of cranes
and stuff like that on work sites. Am I right? No, it

(01:33):
does that, It does that anda whole lot more. Okay, well
did you start that way? AndI don't know that part of your startup
story, Brian, Well, togive you a good start up story.
The commercially unit, I believe wasgoing to be a home unit and it
almost went thud. And a companycame along called Williams Scotsman about a thousand
units overnight. And then I said, what are you going to do with

(01:57):
these things? And said, well, we're going to run them out to
job site And I said, you'regoing to put my tattle tail in a
job site trailer a dirt clod.Yes. And then I went home and
licked my wounds, and I wokeup the next day and I said,
well I might have to learn howto be the rambo of job sites.
Then we started inventing the true story. Then we started inventing outdoor sensors that

(02:19):
would run out of battery for fiveyears and wouldn't fall. So we started
doing uh, you know, twelvemillion square feet to two hundred acres with
one box and four hundred and fiftycentsors, and we dare somebody to try
it because we cut them red handed. And then we do schools, churches.
But to us, everything's a jobsite. We don't care if it's

(02:40):
inside or outside. We'll do itno wires, and we've got twenty six
years undefeated. Gail, what doyou think of that? Well, I
think's better than a large dog guidingyour property. And Gail said, she
lit up when she said, yeah, that's where I know him from job
sites because the sign, Gail,had you seen the sign on science?
But now you've moved to homes soit just has continued. This is a

(03:04):
twenty six year startup story, butyou ultimately ended up moving to homes as
well. Protect anything anywhere, anytime. Why was that so important to you?
Well, I was really embarrassed Igot boot out of girls' houses,
so you have to know I wentout and spent one hundred and twenty thousand
dollars to figure out what women wantedin a way of an alarm system.
Wow, it's spent a lot ofmoney. Maybe some red Roses might have

(03:25):
done the trick, but you knowthat's just me. And the number one
thing was they wanted something invisible,and I looked at my designer spencer,
and I said, we're done.We can't do that. One woman said,
can you make it look like aplant? And I even I wouldn't
say that. Well, and justlike you know, so we invented the
home system and we gave it atouchscreen. And what I love about that

(03:49):
product is it's got the same technologyas the construction one, meaning it's ambush
proof. You can't take it out. But my favor is you plug it
in and that's it. There's nohassle. You don't need sensis because it's
got to build in motion. Andthen for all the people that want to
get involved in they saying that youcan add ninety five censors to it of

(04:11):
any kind. But most people neverreally need all that jazz, and they
never get an alarm system because theydon't want to fall around with it.
Mm hmmmm. I guess there comesthe best part. American made, which
is great. I mean, thefact that you're doing this all here is
fantastic. And you know, customerservice. If you were asking the ladies

(04:33):
how to make this work for them, you've had customer service in the DNA
of what you do. Brian.I mean, how important it's made here
in the United States. But howimportant is the customer service element to what
you do? Well, I justwant to say that it's everything. I
appreciate you reminding me of that,because that's the thing I wanted to talk

(04:54):
about the most. When you dialone trip A tell on you, a
real person answers the phone, speaksEnglish, answers the questions, honors the
order, follows up and delivers,never let you down. So my team
that answers the phone, old fashioned, nineteen sixty style, that's what I'm
That's enough to make a grown mancry. That's enough to make my husband

(05:18):
cheer. I'll tell you that,not a fix it guy. So anything
that we can do in our hometo make things easier customer service wise,
great, And Brian, I'm sureyou have the opportunity to outsource that several
times. What was really the lynchpinfor you of keeping it as it is.

(05:38):
I mean, because cost it couldhave cut. You could have probably
cut costs there too. Here's here'sthe answer. You can't teach people what
it means to be portable with security, even alarm dealers. And I like
alarm dealers. They're professional guys thatgo out and install things. But if
you had a box to get upand go, like a cell phone across
the country and an RV, thatmight be a bit of a stretch for

(06:00):
somebody to handle. So we madetwenty four hour customer care and I really
copied seller one in AirTouch. Imean, I grew up in the cellular
business when I owned the phone works, and I watched all the retention and
I watched the customer care, andthat was always the missing piece because when
you get an alarm system and somebodycalls and says you want the cops or
not, they want a straight answerbecause if they don't send the cops,

(06:23):
they're going to get sued. Sothey're not nice on the phone. They're
all business and you need a bufferof who's going to take care of people.
So we take care of people.And I'll tell you you can say
all you want to about Tattletale,but if I didn't have my people and
they weren't trained to understand portable andbe trained by an old man like me,

(06:45):
I mean, you can't. That'sthe kind of stuff you really should
talk about, is how to takecare of people. I like the fact
that you realize that because that ismissing in many companies now. I don't
know how many times we spend timeon the phone just waiting for someone to
a person to answer instead of clickingon touch one, touch two, and
all you're getting a recording so thatyou're right. That is a huge value

(07:09):
to a customer. And Mindy hatesit. You talk about somebody pissing a
moment about bad service and not answeringthe phones. Well, I know,
Mindy and I understand. We bothdo yes. And then you know,
Brian, when you do have whenyour alarm does go off, and and
maybe it's an accident that it goesoff because you pressed a button or done

(07:30):
something, what happens your call centeris twenty four to seven. I take
it, yes, and all ofit is here in the United States.
Hey man, Yes, but here'swhat happens. We put a thing on
your phone where it says cancel,so you know if you know it's a
false and it's a cleaning lady andit shows up on your phone, you
can hit a cancel button. Orthe person that calls you and says,

(07:54):
hey, I'm getting ready to dispatch. Want you want this? You could
say turn, don't worry about andgive them some pass sword and then they'll
lay off, so it's easy inand out. Yeah, but let me
tell you what's really coming. AndI and I love this because it reminds
me of liberty vivity like commercial.Yeah, you reminds me of those guys.

(08:18):
But I I came up with thisidea and it was really dangerous and
dumb, but I like it andwe're going to do it. It's nine
dollars and ninety five cents a monthto have your tattlete on and you can
rock and roll it from your phoneand everything you can think or expect.
Yes, but you get to determinewhat constitutes a dispatch, and I think

(08:39):
you should because frankly, you know, you pay thirty bucks a month,
you may never have an alarm.And if you're of you know, if
you're young or you're older, youjust don't like paying for something you don't
use. They hardly ever have analarm, so why make them pay?
And what I'll do is charge youeight bucks for something they want to.
You know, if you want coughsand say bucks after three times, I

(09:01):
won't charge it, so it's threeand then they're free. So you can
never be out of pocket more thanthirty four ninety five. But I hope
you stay at nine dollars and youstay safe. And we're gonna roll that
out. It's called on demand Monitorand it's slick. It's teared pricing for
an alarm. I mean, reallyand truly it's slick. I don't like

(09:22):
to use the word slick unless youthink it's really slick. Yeah, I
was gonna say, I admire yourentrepreneurism. I always admire people who are
entrepreneurs like that, and you soundlike one of those people. I'm jealous.
It's cool. Well, thank you, don't be jealous. Just pass
the word. And you guys aredoing a great job on the radio for

(09:43):
us, and we appreciate it.And we can ship anybody at Tattletale ups
overnight. I do want to plugone thing. Just because you got a
situation doesn't mean you want to buyan alarm. System, and we ran
a tattlete for ten bucks a dayin that glue to police and it comes
with an indoor outdoor sensor and abox that you plug in that also has

(10:05):
a built in censor, and youcan rent it for as little as a
week. I don't care. Soif you have a short term situation that
you need some support with, yeah, you might have something valuable somewhere,
a part, you know, anythingto appen to it. You're nervous,
or you got somebody it's given youa problem and nobody can make it go

(10:26):
away. So now you've got tobooby trap the problem and cuts them red
handed. And by the way,booby traps a real word. They use
it the military. We know it. We're the age that we know of
Brian. Okay, So for tenbucks a day, you can handle it.
And I think that's the greatest thingbecause you might decide you like one
to buy it or you might justborrow it. Oh, I do like

(10:48):
that idea. That's very cool.It's very cool. Tattletale dot com is
where you guys can go to learnmore if you're interested in Brian always makes
you interested Brian. Anything else youwant to say before we leave us today.
Nice to meet you, Bill.Nice to meet you too, Brian.
Good luck with you well, thoughI don't think you need it.
Well. Thanks again, MICHAELA.Have a great Sunday. Minday, if

(11:11):
you're listening, you missed the perfectopportunity to complain about bad services. She
will find a way, Brian.We will make sure that she finds another
way. Brian has with Tattletale PortableAlarm Systems. Brian, talked to you
later, See you, Brian,by bye. This is what matters on
six' ten a WTV in