In reaction to the need for social distancing due to COVID-19, ADT is suspending door-to-door sales for its reps and is asking its Authorized Dealers to follow suit. The changes were announced today by Joe Nuccio, ADT President of Dealer Partnerships.
“We understand this is a trying time for ADT employees and our Authorized Dealers, but we believe this action is necessary and inevitable during this time of crisis,” Nuccio said. “Our day-to-day operations outside of door-to-door sales will continue as providing our customers with life safety and security is even more essential during these times.”
A statement released on Tuesday also delves further into how the company will handle face-to-face meetings with residential and business customers:
"Our commitment to helping keep our communities safe means we sometimes need to interact with customers in-person to repair and install home security and life safety systems. ADT is also the security, fire protection and life safety provider for essential businesses and facilities in our communities, which include hospitals, distribution centers, grocery stores, financial institutions and restaurants. To continue providing safety and peace of mind to our customers, we are taking these measures:
- Our call centers are phone screening all residential customers, before setting in-home appointments, to ensure they can provide a safe work environment for our team members, and to ensure the safety of all customers.
- We are equipping our customer-facing employees with additional cleaning, sanitation and protective tools to help protect them and our customers. We are also asking our field teams to conduct daily personal wellness checks before reporting to work.
- Our field staff are taking additional steps to help protect our customers, including the following: practicing social distancing, reconfirming that the customer household is healthy before arriving, using sanitizer and hand-washing before and after the consultation, and conducting all business through digital confirmation (e-signature).
- ADT is leading the industry in temporarily ceasing all unsolicited, door-to-door sales practices.
The statement also includes a section regarding the company's monitoring services: "ADT utilizes a network of nine monitoring centers, which are geographically distributed throughout the United States, and include redundancies which provide backup services for critical functions such as professional monitoring and customer care. This feature of our network provides strength in times like these. Additionally, we have recently deployed tools to enable many of our employees to work remotely, and we now have nearly 2,000 ADT monitoring and customer care professionals working from remote locations."
Finally, ADT reports it has instituted a number of policies and practices to support employees, including:
- A temporary, company-wide remote working mandate for positions that can begin remote work immediately;
- A flexible attendance policy, including access to paid time off, that encourages employees to stay home if they feel ill or need to care for at-home children; and
- 100% regular compensation for up to two weeks if an employee is required to be quarantined due to the COVID-19 illness.
