Transcript

Colin Uthe:

Welcome to Connected, a podcast about the operations and the people that make up Chamberlain Group. On this podcast we've had a lot of different discussions regarding myQ, our smart access solution for residents and business owners alike. But there are some applications that we haven't yet discussed, one of which is the end-to-end access solution, myQ Community. Residential communities are a market that Chamberlain Group has been involved in for many years, supplying an industry leading hardware catalog such as gate operators, intercoms, and much more. But as my guest, George Taylor will mention along with a few others later on, introducing myQ into this market is a new and exciting frontier for us.

George Taylor:

This is George Taylor. I'm the Vice President of Sales for Access Control Solutions at Chamberlain. This is a business of 50 sellers, all focused on the multifamily experience here.

Colin Uthe:

Can you dive into a little bit more for me on what access control solutions means to Chamberlain Group?

George Taylor:

Absolutely. Yeah, so we've been doing Access Solutions for over 50 years, but more specifically in the last few years, we've invested $150 million in our myQ software platform and more specifically the myQ Community for multifamily, which is the focus of our access control solutions team. And this business covers really over 9,000 communities that we've sold into, supporting over 2 million residents. And so we know how to make access simple. In fact, it's in our vision.

Colin Uthe:

Would you consider this a new venture with Chamberlain Group?

George Taylor:

I think it's a new way of organizing our people. In fact, it's really an exciting time to be at Chamberlain with our CEO's vision. We aligned all of the myQ Community functions under a single leader to go fast and to really think like a startup within a broader organization. And not to mention we've made a ton of investments specifically for this market by doubling the size of our team and really driving innovation around the access control solutions that we offer across both software and hardware.

Colin Uthe:

So it's obviously very important for us to get further into this market. Can you tell me about how this fits into the rest of the business?

George Taylor:

Yeah. As I mentioned, our vision is to make access simple and our solution that we sell is more of a commercial approach than what we do in the residential side.

Colin Uthe:

Right. Because the target demographic here is people who own multiple units that want to centralize the communications more.

George Taylor:

That's right. We actually have three customer types that we look at across the access control space. It starts with security distribution and core distributor partners of ours that maybe sell gates and things like that, and providing the front end of access control on the hardware side. But we also have two other customers that we sell into. One is our integrator/dealers, the ones that actually implement the solution at a property. And then we also sell to the end users themselves. So that's like large property manager, owner operators, and even developers that are building these properties or buying these properties to really provide a multifamily experience for residents.

Colin Uthe:

Okay. That's interesting to me because by your definition the end user is still the property manager. I would've thought that the end user would've been a resident, but they're really the people who are benefiting from the system rather than buying into the system.

George Taylor:

Yeah, that's right. And the resident is, in this case, sometimes the most important, although we typically don't sell to residents because the property management, we want to ensure that we have a really secure solution, and so it takes a property manager to turn that on for their residents as opposed to just giving it to individuals along the way.

Colin Uthe:

Right, that makes sense. Can you tell me more about the experience of being a part of myQ Community is for the resident?

George Taylor:

Yeah, absolutely. So the experience really could be multifaceted. It could be they use the app on their phone that allows them to open gates, doors, the pool, the gym, any kind of access area that is locked. They can also do that as a credential. They can use their phone as a credential. Many residents have key fobs or cards and things like that. We certainly support that as well. But, as innovations happen in this prop tech space, more and more residents really just want to use their phone to be able to access these things. And so they can do that as well.

And then the other part of that experience is that they hear from their property managers about times when potentially an elevator may be down for maintenance or the pool is closed for cleaning or things of that nature. It allows the property manager to directly connect with their residents in a really seamless way that isn't via email or text message, they see it all on their app. And they really get a full experience of living in a really high-end multifamily home.

Colin Uthe:

Yeah, I like that. It's like why bother reinventing the wheel? Because, I mean, most everybody has a smartphone in their pocket anyway, so getting the most out of the hard way they already have rather than putting something else in their pocket seems like a really smart way to go about it.

George Taylor:

Absolutely. And when we talk to property managers, we hear all the time about lost keys, lost cards, and lost fobs. Most people don't lose their phone. They have their phone with them almost every second of the day, and so it's just a convenient medium for them to use to really control access.

Colin Uthe:

Yeah, exactly. I've heard around myQ Community that a really popular phrase that you like to use when marketing your product is curb to couch. I was wondering if you can tell me a little bit more about what that means for everybody involved in the process?

George Taylor:

Yeah, absolutely. Curb to couch is a popular phrase. What that really means, and especially why we have a unique solution approach to curb to couch is if you look at our total solution suite, and if you start at the curb, which is the gate to let someone in or out, we obviously produce and sell gates. And so that's kind of the first section of curb to couch. And what that does is we provide a solution starting there all the way to the front door through potentially an intercom. That front door can be unlocked using a phone as a credential or through the app. To the elevator to potentially, as we talked about earlier, the pool, the workout room, the whatever the case may be, all the way to the couch, which for us is the front door. Most recently we've provided a solution for in-unit locks, so people can use their phones to actually open the door to their apartment or their residence, which is a tremendous kind of build on top of our vision for really making access simple.

Colin Uthe:

All right, George. So I understand that this spring was a very busy season for anybody involved in the myQ Community side because there was a few trade shows that you had a presence at.

George Taylor:

There's multiple trade shows always going on. There was a big one for us at ISC West, but then we do in-city, there's a lot of different departmentalized and shows like that. So we're consistently being out and really kind of driving awareness for the myQ Community brand.

Colin Uthe:

Got it. Just a whole month long road show it sounded like. Tell me a little bit more about ISC West.

George Taylor:

Yeah, for sure. So ISC West it's really a show of both property tech companies as well as distributors, all really kind of displaying their different solutions for, in most cases, integrators. This is where a lot of integrators and dealers show up to see what's going on in the industry-

Colin Uthe:

So professional channel.

George Taylor:

Definitely the professional channel. Absolutely. And I think when you go to that show, first of all, it's in Las Vegas. It's a really large show with thousands of people distributing their wares and their solutions and things like that. Everything from access control like we do all the way to hardware solutions like doors and locks and things like that. And then distributors that carry all those products.

Colin Uthe:

So how did your team go about showcasing the new experience at ISC West?

George Taylor:

Yeah, the team did a great job of really showing that entire experience through two different lenses. It really started on the software side, who is led by Mark Yeandle and what that was a total immersion to show people what the resident could see and use from an experience for the property manager could see and use from an experience. And so we showed it through those two different lenses.

Mark Yeandle:

My name is Mark Yeandle. I am the senior software product manager for the myQ Community team at the Chamberlain Group. I lead a team of about 44 people and we have two dedicated groups. We have one that is focused on the myQ Community web platform for managing access of residence, but then just access controls in general. And then another team which is focused on providing a native app experience for our Android and iOS users. The app has always been focused towards our residents in terms of just providing a really great seamless experience to get into their building, into their units, and that's where the whole curb to couch story comes alive.

Colin Uthe:

Tell me a little bit about our presence at ISC West. What were you showcasing and what sort of conversations did you have?

Mark Yeandle:

Yeah, yeah. Really we were showcasing the complete solution from our web platform and to our app experiences, but it was also the first time that we were really able to demo the app experiences on an iPad. When I mentioned earlier that we redesigned and rebuilt our app experience, we were able to transform from a smartphone from your iPhone, from your Galaxy or pixel phone, and now we can take that experience and scale it.

Colin Uthe:

Yeah. I had a peek at that during our dealer partner cast that we filmed a little while ago, and I got to say it was pretty slick.

Mark Yeandle:

Yeah. And the development effort for that uplift was relatively small, but it provides us with a great tool, I'm sure George will talk about this, it provides us a great tool to provide a shoulder to shoulder demo and allow people to really start looking at our experiences, not just smartphone and website, but something that meets all of the devices in a home at any one time. So at ISC West we were demoing the iPad, we were showing people how they can run the app experience and the web experience on a single screen and really help us have a much deeper conversation with our potential dealers and integrators.

Colin Uthe:

Yeah, again, showing customers this is how everything plugs in and works together. I can see that's a really important angle of the experience you're selling.

Mark Yeandle:

Exactly. Especially when you're doing device provisioning and some people have to bring out a laptop and have to be like, oh, we have to use a laptop for device provisioning, but the main way that people are going to use our hardware is through an app. So now I need to get my phone out. This just allows you to have one device to manage all devices and it's really about streamlining the provisioning the installation, and the ability for people to use our experience on one device.

George Taylor:

And then we also had support from the business unit by Rebecca Peterson who leads our product management side and she showed the hardware experience of what that looks like. So how does the resident interact at a gate, at a front door, at a potential pool, workout facility or what have you through the subset of solutions that we offer in hardware.

Rebecca Peterson:

My name is Rebecca Peterson. I am the director of solutions for Access Community Business. So I'm responsible for both the hardware and the software development for our business at Chamberlain Group. So I have a team right now of about five product managers. I do have some members that are really focused on the hardware development. That's really their specialties. You have to be experts end-to-end on the intercoms, door controller, as well as access accessories such as like smart readers, credentials, long range readers. And then we have two other PMs that are really responsible for the software experience. So that's our myQ web platform as well as the myQ Community app.

Colin Uthe:

And you were at ISC West if I'm not mistaken.

Rebecca Peterson:

I was, yeah.

Colin Uthe:

It seems like every single person who was cool was at ISC West. What sort of hardware focused features did we showcase at ISC West?

Rebecca Peterson:

So for us, we were really showcasing our latest intercom, which is the Smart Video Intercom-L, which is the next generation of the previous CAPXLV. But one of the things that we did with this product launch is we really made sure that we were adding in a lot of the key features that are trending in the security market space today. We've added this capability of configurable inputs and outputs. What that means is as you think about integrations and building needs, they're looking to add more things that are like, "Hey, I want to be able to independently control this relay to control this output" or you want to be able to do a relay to a NextBox connection. So when we did this next generation intercom, we really broke up the way that our door controller really makes that function happen so that we can give that independence and that flexibility to integrators. And what we're doing with that, the reason why we also do is because we're working right now in our next generation door controller platform, and that is what we're going to use as the foundation for that platform. So we started the seeds with that design moving it over.

The other big thing I want to talk about is we have launched our line of smart readers last ISC West. So one of the things with those readers that they have this capability of is called this OSDP communication protocol. So that feature OSDP in particular is important because the market is going that way. The one thing about OSDP is actually governed by SIA, which is the Security industry association. And not many players are actually enabling this feature and we know it's growing in market adoption, so we know that's where it's heading. So what we wanted to make sure is that we were making that investment in our design now knowing that the market is going to be asking for it and it's become a table stake. So it was really important that we showcase that at ISC West.

George Taylor:

So for us, ISC West was a really big show because we were showcasing our entire solution starting with the experience both for residents and property managers enabled by our hardware. And so we met with both integrators as well as there's some end users that come to the show, and we saw over 800 unique visitors at the show and actually won couple of awards and had a significant amount of pieces of press coming out of that as you mentioned, which was great. So it was really a good show for us as we were able to showcase the total solution around what we do for access control.

Colin Uthe:

And I just want to add for anybody who'd like to see, there is a video recap of ISC West on Chamberlain Groups' LinkedIn and it is substantial. This is a lot more than just a booth. This was like a full blown experience that took up a few hundred square feet of the show floor. There must have been over a dozen Chamberlain Group reps talking with guests too. So I'm hearing that not only is Chamberlain Group there to see what's the latest and greatest in the industry, but also to potentially strike a deal with partners and dealers there.

George Taylor:

Absolutely. So we have someone in the organization that does integrations, and that's a really important part for us because whether is property management systems or whether it's IOT vendors and things like that, we want to be that one experience where the resident can go into our app and not only see all of the things that we offer through LiftMaster and our myQ Community solution, but other things that may be out there and that could include connecting with a parking system or that could include security cameras and things like that. And so we really do have a desire to integrate with other companies solutions so that we provide the best experience for the resident in the end.

Colin Uthe:

Obviously these trade shows and just having a presence on the road is a very important component of selling this ecosystem. And it doesn't sound like that's going to stop anytime soon. George, where's the next major stop that potential dealers and partners could see you guys visiting?

George Taylor:

The next one is actually in Philadelphia at the Apartmentalize show, which is June 19th through the 21st. And we will be there in full force in the booth showcasing the full experience of what our access control solution can deliver. Now this one is more focused on the end user and property management groups and so a little bit different than the ISC West show that we talked about earlier. This one is much more focused on that whole segment.

Colin Uthe:

George, that is a wildly busy summer it sounds like that you guys have, and I commend you for spending as much time as your team does out on the road just spreading the word about what we're rolling out. Can you summarize what's on the horizon for myQ community?

George Taylor:

So I think from a selling effort, it's really our focus on providing a better experience in the multifamily market with our access control solutions. And so whether that is talking to integrators about how utilizing LiftMaster in the myQ Community suite can help them integrate more easily and do it more effectively because of our seamless integration across a lot of different solutions, I think that's certainly a big area of focus. The other is in speaking with the property management firms, owner operators and developers about how we can really change the resident experience and how we can help them raise their rents or their monthly costs that they're able to get for their different properties because they have a much better technical solution that provides the resident a better experience. And so I think that'll be our focus for the remainder of the year as where out and really talking and driving awareness about our solutions.

Colin Uthe:

What are you personally most excited about on the horizon from myQ Community?

Mark Yeandle:

It was kind of our first foray into it is Community Announcements. It's a push notification from the property manager to all of their residents with real time communication. We live in a world where we're fighting for attention. Everything is trying to grab attention. Email doesn't provide real time information and doesn't have that attention grabbing element that a push notification does. Community Announcements that came out just before Christmas. And we are excited about that because it's really our first foray into an app experience designed for property managers that allows them to connect with their residents in a way which they weren't able to do previously.

Rebecca Peterson:

Well for us the one thing I am also really excited about is that we did our full integration with RemoteLock for a smart lock integration within our platform. This is really important to us because we've had our intercoms about three years ago. We started the foundation rolling out the new intercoms, we added the door controller, we've got the web platform and the app. So that is one thing that extremely excited for because we can really now say we've got that curb to couch experience.

George Taylor:

Yeah, I'm most excited about our opportunity ahead. We've got an incredible solution that when people see it, their eyes light up. No matter whether it's an integrator or a property manager or even a resident. And I think whether you're that resident who's looking for a better experience or you're a property manager who wants a better solution for communicating with the residents or an integrator who's looking for an easier and more complete solution to offer to their customers, we really believe that the opportunity ahead with LiftMaster and myQ Community solution provides that to all of them. And I would say, not to mention, we're also working on some other really great, and that includes, we alluded to a little earlier, security cameras, potential parking solutions and more. And so, I really feel like the future is super bright.

Colin Uthe:

George, thank you so much for sitting down with me for a little bit and telling me about what's hot and new within the myQ Community sector.

George Taylor:

It's been great spending a little time together. Thanks for letting me tell the story.

Colin Uthe:

Thank you for listening. Tune in next month for more stories of how all of us at Chamberlain Group are connected. This episode was written, recorded, and edited by me, Colin Uthe. Our producers are Megan McClendon and Jim Kozyra. Our music was provided by Soundstripe.com.