In some areas of life, it is acceptable for us to lower our standards or requirements. For example, when buying a car, when can forgo a few luxury features in order to make a more practical purchase. Even as we pick our life partner, we can care less about the person's looks and focus more on his character. However, security is one of the things in life where compromises must be totally avoided. No compromises absolutely.
Being a business owner, it is your responsibility to protect your premises. This can be done rather easily when you hire a reliable keyholding company. The question is, out of the several options available, how can you tell which one is right for you?
You can begin by consider what type of guards you need. These officers may be armed or unarmed. If your needs are not complicated, you may save money by not having to hire armed officers. Guards who work within a CCTV monitoring room do not actually need gums to perform their tasks. If your purpose for hiring guards is to keep up with the minimum requirements of your insurance plan, then you also don't need armed officers.
As soon as you know what type of security guards you want, you can start searching for companies in your local area. Of course, there couldn't be a faster way to do this than to search online. There are many extensive listings of security guard companies here for practically every metropolitan area there is. You should check out review websites too in order to narrow down your list to the firms that are most highly recommended.
Once you have shortlist, start calling these firms and assess them over the phone. Just by paying attention to how they take your call, you can determine what kind of service they offer clients. As a general rule, forget about security guard companies that use an answering machine.
Reputable companies always offer round-the-clock customer service helplines where only trained and knowledgeable staff are taking calls.
Also look for companies which have been operating for many years. Pick one only if they are experienced in securing the same kind of facility as yours. Different facilities require different security levels and approaches, so you need a company that will truly understand your requirements and have the capacity to address them.
When you decide on a security company to hire, ask them to provide you a copy of their license and insurance. You should also ask them for a list of old and present clients. Call some of these people and have them tell you about their experiences with the particular company.
Of course, whether we admit it or not, price is a big factor in anyone's choice of a security guard company. Still, it must never be considered as the most important factor. Needless to say, if you pick a less than efficient company for the sake of saving money, you will end up putting your business at risk.