Inside Chamberlain Group’s Evolution into an Experience-First Organization

Before she went to college, Jeff Meredith’s teenage daughter would arrive home from school between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m every weekday. Like most homeowners — roughly 70 percent— she used their home’s garage door to gain entry, and each time she did, his phone would vibrate, letting him know that she had arrived home safely, on schedule. 

While there was comfort in the myQ notification indicating the garage door had opened and closed, there was an implied assumption that the access event was his daughter’s arrival. By diving deeper into this experience, the myQ team learned that parents would gain increased peace of mind by viewing live or recorded video footage to verify the identity of the person entering the door. This focus on enhancing customer experience prompted the innovation of adding cameras to garage door openers and garage keypads. That’s the power of Chamberlain Group’s myQ ecosystem, a set of intelligent access devices linked together in the myQ app, which enables customers to monitor, manage and control access.

As CEO, Meredith has played a critical role in guiding Chamberlain Group’s evolution into an “experience-first” organization, an innovation approach that runs counter to the product-first mentality that many other companies take. 

“We’re trying to design an experience and then use technology to create the experience, not start with what we can do with a certain technology,” Meredith explained. 

For decades, Chamberlain Group has been a hardware-driven organization, delivering solutions that enable people to move safely and securely through homes, communities, workplaces and businesses. While its mission of making access simple and secure remains the same, the company is focusing on hardware and software in equal measure to deliver experiences that exceed customers’ expectations. 

And at the heart of it all is AI, which unlocks a wide range of enhanced features for the company’s customers, reflecting a focus on experience that Meredith believes will set the organization apart in its industry. 

“A lot of companies are pushing to implement AI in somewhat ad hoc and random ways,” Meredith said. “We’re really trying to be thoughtful about deployment.” 

Take, for instance, the video camera that allows Meredith to verify his daughter’s safe arrival after school. In addition to sending real-time alerts, the technology also has the potential to send alerts when routine habits change. So, if Meredith’s daughter didn’t show up within the typical time frame of 3:30 p.m to 4 p.m., he would receive an alert that she hadn’t arrived home as usual. While the reason for her absence could be something expected, like after-school soccer practice, it could also indicate an unexpected event or emergency situation.

Chamberlain Group’s software engineers, which now amass 70 percent of the company’s engineering talent, are the drivers behind capabilities such as this one, which they call ‘anomaly detection.’ With their focus on innovating the customer experience, the company has expanded its product suite — and its influence — substantially. 

When Meredith joined the company in 2018, the myQ app had less than 1 million users. Now, that number is close to 14 million, spanning a presence in more than 9 million U.S. households. 

“I’m really excited about the progress that we’ve made, but in many ways we are just getting started,” Meredith said. 

This growth has also been spurred by Blackstone’s acquisition of Chamberlain Group in September 2021, which he believes accelerated the company’s strategy. It also led to new business opportunities, such as an increased use of the company’s data-driven access management and video security technology in large apartment and condominium providers, enterprise warehouses and other spaces. 

“We continue to push forward aggressively with our business transformation,” Meredith said. “I think we’re starting to get recognized as much for our technology solutions as we are for our industry-leading access hardware, which is ultimately where we want to get to.” 

“I think we’re starting to get recognized as much for our technology solutions as we are for our industry leading access hardware, which is ultimately where we want to get to.”

Another driver behind Chamberlain Group’s success is its partnerships with retailers like Amazon and Walmart as well as integrations with automakers like Tesla and Honda, each of which has helped the company “increase awareness of myQ while providing unique value for customers.” 

While the Amazon and Walmart partnerships enable couriers to securely drop off packages in customers’ garages, the auto Tesla integration partnership leverages geofencing technology, prompting drivers’ garage doors to automatically open and close when their vehicle is approaching and departing.

Meredith believes that the impact of these partnerships has been twofold: Not only has it enabled the company to rub shoulders with tech giants, instilling greater confidence in its technological abilities; it also allows the organization to deliver experiences that would be impossible otherwise.  

As Chamberlain Group leans on AI and partnerships to fuel its growth, the company is still committed to building “reliable, trustworthy and dependable hardware” — the crux of the business that has lasted for decades. In fact, the company has refreshed many of its commercial hardware products in the last year and a half, equipping them with video and connectivity capabilities. 

“The hardware is our bread and butter,” Meredith said. “Hardware is always going to be essential for us to deliver leading access solutions to our customers, but expanding from a pure product view to an experience view and tapping into customer insights is an important evolution for us and a big part of our transformation.”

This stage in the company’s evolution is one that he believes most hardware companies never reach. “They’re really focused on making a product,” Meredith said. “They don’t devote enough time to thinking about the customer, who’s going to use the product, and what their experience is going to be.”

And with connected solutions, Chamberlain Group can understand how its customers are using their products and what their frustrations are, enabling the company to continuously enhance the overall experience. 

With so much innovation on the horizon, Chamberlain Group needs the right talent to accomplish it all. According to Meredith, that means some existing team members will have the chance to switch functions according to their skill sets, giving them the opportunity to expand their professional acumen while supporting business goals. 

“We’re trying to cultivate an environment where people continuously have new, interesting opportunities,” he said. 

For Meredith, the key to building a strong future lies in keeping employees informed. Throughout his career, he has strived to lead with authenticity, ensuring everyone has the information they need to succeed. 

“If you want people to really find themselves in a business strategy and understand their path to drive impact, they have to be fully aware of what we’re trying to accomplish,” he said. 

At Chamberlain Group, everyone plays a role in helping the company reinvent itself. As the company plans to accelerate innovation and intelligence in the access space over the next few years, it’s leaning on the strength of its technology — and the determination of its people — to do so.