Alliance celebrates 75 years of community and business support

*Paid Business Feature*

For 75 years, Alliance has been in the business of people. In 1948, the business began as Kingston Answering Service, answering calls for medical and emergency services. After a few changes in ownership, it became Alliance in 1976, and continued its legacy of helping people through telephone service.

“Our business has had many iterations. We have offered security guard services, private detectives, sold pagers and cell phones and even ice cubes. But the one thing that has always been consistent is our commitment to offering outstanding customer service,” explained Brad French, the current owner of Alliance and son to Jack French, who purchased the business in 1966.

The Frenches have run Alliance — besides a short period in the late 60s and early 70s — as a telephone answering service. In 1976, the family launched a security division of the company when they realized their potential for answering calls for a monitored alarm company.

The company has grown from a small team of four working out of a house on Garrett Street to 82 individuals working at the state-of-the-art Alliance Business Centre on Concession Street. Brad French came on board as a full time employee in 1998, and purchased the company from his father in 2004.

“The answering service has expanded beyond Kingston, and now handles over a million calls a year from clients across North America,” French stated. “Our success can be attributed to our team of highly skilled, award-winning agents and support staff who are dedicated to providing a ‘wow’ experience from hello to goodbye.”

In Kingston, the company is best known for its Security division, as evidenced by the ‘Alliance’ stickers in residential and business windows throughout the city.

“With over 4,000 customers along the 401 corridor, we are the largest independently-owned security company in our region, offering both residential and commercial security solutions,” French said.

French noted that a core value of their business is giving back to the community.

“Giving back to the communities we live and work in goes to the very heart of our company,” he stated. “From ‘dress down’ Fridays for Youth Diversion to sponsoring toy drives, snowsuit funds, and food banks, Alliance believes in supporting charities and causes that are important to our team.”

As the business grew, the team realized they could do more, and created Alliance Cares — an employee-led initiative that financially supports organizations chosen by employees. Sponsored projects include community clean-up events, charitable giving, a partnership with BGC Southeast, annual support for Cystic Fibrosis, financial donations to organizations working towards food security, and supporting Kingston General Hospital.

“Our commitment to delivering outstanding customer service and embracing emerging technologies has us well-positioned for the future. In the last five years we have tripled the size of our company and are confident that our people, products, and services will continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future,” French expressed.

“We will continue our tradition of community involvement through our corporate giving program and by offering meaningful employment to people in Eastern Ontario. We will continue to live our core values as a company, and not lose sight of the community that helped us reach 75 years in business,” he concluded.

“While our company is now a global business, our success is directly linked to Kingston.”

Learn more about Alliance on their website.

This article is sponsored by Alliance. Interested in a Business Feature on Kingstonist? Contact [email protected]