Parks Points

As the smart home industry moves from early adopters to the early majority, brands in the space fervently seek to understand the value propositions that drive product adoption and how to improve perceived product value among consumers.

How people shop for and buy smart home devices is also changing — the home security industry has been the primary channel to spread the smart home value proposition among first adopters, but as the number and breadth of DIY products expand in retail, the avenues of acquisition are changing.

Most consumers started their smart home journey with security-focused solutions, but a greater variety of use cases now drive consumers’ first smart home device purchases.

In some cases, a consumer is seeking greater convenience around access control use cases. In other instances, highly personal preferences or the popularity of a device guides the purchase.

Smart home product purchase patterns will strengthen over time as adoption increases, and the security industry will be impacted. Understanding this process will help security dealers incorporate additional products and services, increasing revenue opportunities and stickiness with solutions that align with the consumer mindset.

At the same time, smart home solutions have invigorated a traditionally stagnant security market — security providers have been successful at converting legacy customers to interactive services, and 75% of home security installations in 2017 included smart control features. Parks Associates estimates annual revenue for professionally monitored security will exceed $15 billion by 2022.

Knowledge of the products consumers are purchasing, what they intend to purchase, and what is driving these intentions can help guide efforts, partnership alignments and marketing strategies.

A solid understanding of customer experience challenges along their journey with a product is critical to industry success as security firms and dealers realign their businesses for the smart home century.

This article was originally published on Security Sales & Integration.