DTT announced a new partnership with The Cookie Place Inc., the largest Great American Cookies franchisee with more than 50 stores. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, the franchise first connected with DTT around two years ago. After a successful pilot was conducted in five stores, DTT was invited to present best loss prevention practices and its suite of services at a franchisee association meeting in August 2015. Shortly thereafter, The Cookie Place decided to sign DTT as a preferred surveillance and loss prevention vendor throughout their enterprise. DTT also gained business from various other Great American Cookies franchisees.

One of the largest motivations for the partnership was DTT’s network printer tap integration with NCR Silver, completed in fall 2015. DTT’s solution allows Great American Cookies stores to catch transactional integrity issues such as low sale values, discounts, and voids. This service gave DTT a unique edge that was unmatched by competitive vendors.

“The SmartAudits and the online MyDTT portal were definitely big selling factors for us,” says Jeff Pizitz, president of The Cookie Place. “We love the customizable audit parameters and features such as the Discussion Board and Actions Taken on MyDTT, which allows us to track if employees are following up on assignments from management. Since installing the system, we’ve caught a lot of unauthorized discounting, which was backed up by both POS integration and the audio module. In some cases, employees were discounting our $25–$30 Cookie Cakes up to 50 percent and pocketing the change, or using employee discounts for sales to friends and family. DTT also helped us determine optimal camera placement for each store so we can see if display cases are well-stocked and employees are completing duties throughout the day.”

“As a company, we do everything we can to ensure the needs of our customers are fully met, whether that’s analyzing their store layouts or implementing a new services,” says Tom Moran, executive vice president of sales and marketing for DTT. “It’s fantastic that The Cookie Place has seen such impactful results and changed internal policies to address issues that our system has uncovered. We look forward to further installations and developments with this franchisee and the Great American Cookies brand.”