Subscribe to our daily newsletter

SaskTel buys local security accounts

Mar 31, 2011 | 12:04 PM

SaskTel is buying customers from other security agencies.

SaskTel SecurTek announced a $1.1 million deal to purchase 1,300 customers from four providers – three from Alberta and one from Prince Albert.

Andy Tate, SaskTel media relations manager, said they purchased 151 customer accounts from Detect Secure Systems.

paNOW tried contacting Detect Secure Systems, but were told they signed a confidentiality document and could not release any information on the deal. They did say they the purchase went smoothly and SecurTek was good to deal with.

The alarm systems will be serviced by Prince Albert Alarms, a SecurTek dealer.

Tate said SecurTek is in the midst of growth. It has been around since 1999 and earning money since 2002.

“They continue to see out new dealers, new customers, not only in Saskatchewan in other provinces in Canada.

“One strategy they pursue is to find security companies that, for whatever reason, are willing to sell customer accounts to SecurTek for whatever reason. In some cases they are existing dealers of SecurTek, sometimes we take them on as existing dealers, sometimes the company just wants to go out of business,” he said.

Tate said it is a fairly smooth process for customers, but depending on the services they use, prices could change. He said they try and transition customers into the new company, and sometime they will still be dealing with the existing company, just the ownership of account changes and the previous company still services it.

There are few different ways SecurTek takes over customer accounts.

“They may approach us and they say we have accounts that we would like to sell and stay on as a dealer we also have relationships with lots of dealers all over the place,” he said, adding sometimes companies sell the accounts simply because they want to go out of business.

“We are in the business of providing security services and we want to keep growing our business and we are a company that is looking to acquire these kinds of accounts,” he said.

According to Tate the company plans to stay competitive in the market and are always looking to purchase accounts in Saskatchewan and nationwide.

klavoie@panow.com