Car dealerships can be magnets for crime because there are so many valuable assets on their properties that can attract nefarious actors. Thieves want to steal them for themselves or to resell because they can bring in a lot of money, for example, and vandals often simply enjoy ruining high-value items for fun, thus car dealership security is of utmost importance.
It is thus essential to ensure your car dealership has top-of-the-line security features to help keep criminals away, or to make sure the police have enough evidence to be able to catch them if they do hit your dealership.
This guide will tell you everything you need to know about car dealership security, including the importance of alarms and keeping proper inventory, and why monitored video surveillance is your best bet to keep your location secure.
Understanding a Car Dealership’s Assets
A car dealership is filled with valuable items that can be attractive to criminals. The valuables you want to protect from thieves include:
- Cars in the showroom. The cars seem like the most obvious, but it’s not easy to take a car off a lot unnoticed. That means crooks may look at other aspects of the dealership when looking for things they can steal.
- Equipment and tools in the warehouse and garage. These items are used to perform maintenance on the cars, but some of that equipment is expensive and can make a thief a decent amount of money.
- Technology in the showroom. From the phones and computers the employees use to the monitors that most dealerships now have to promote their inventory and promotions, all of that tech can be attractive to someone looking to steal from the location.
All this inventory and equipment quickly adds up in value. The more security you have on-site, the better you can protect these and any other assets criminals may try to take.
4 Ways to Improve Car Dealership Security
With that list of valuable assets in mind, you want to have all of your bases covered. Here are four ways you can improve security at your car dealership.
- Keeping property inventory of the vehicles on the property, as well as the equipment and technology that your staff uses. An updated inventory will make it easier for you to tell if something is missing, and could help protect you from internal theft if employees know everything is carefully accounted for.
- Maintaining proper lighting — especially on the exterior of your building and around your lot — is always a good idea. Bright lights often cause a potential criminal to bypass your location and go someplace else where it is darker. Having lights in your lot on after hours or on days when your dealership is closed can also be a good idea.
- Burglar alarms are a big help in protecting your valuable property and assets. If an unauthorized person enters your property and hears an alarm, there’s a good chance it will scare them off and they’ll leave empty-handed. Just having a sign or sticker visible letting people know you have an alarm system may be enough to deter bad guys.
- Security cameras are the best type of security you can have at a car dealership. Cameras are one of the few methods that can not only catch a criminal in real time, but also record what’s going on so you have actual video evidence that you can provide to the authorities and, if needed, your insurance company if you need to file a claim.
Many companies will implement one or two security measures, but doing so can leave gaps in your efforts. Having a security plan tailored specifically to your dealership will go a long way in making certain that you are protecting all of your physical assets, customers, employees, and spaces with the most robust plan possible.
How Monitored Security Can Help
Out of all of your security options, monitored video security is the best choice for virtually any dealership. Employing trained security professionals — especially those with previous law-enforcement, military, or security experience — to monitor your property means you’ll get the fastest and best response should an emergency occur.
Here are some advantages of monitored video security.
- Video proof
Having video footage can help identify the criminal, whether it’s a thief or a vandal who is looking to cause damage to your property or assets. Security footage is one of the few measures that allows you to see what the perpetrator looks like, significantly increasing the chances of law enforcement catching him.
- Preventing bad acts
Having cameras visible can stop criminal activity in its tracks. Seeing you have cameras around your property — or simply having signs alerting crooks about the surveillance — may mean they will just go away without causing the damage or theft they intended to perform when they arrived.
- 24/7 recordkeeping
Video cameras are able to record activity at your location 24 hours a day, providing you with a record of what is going on. That is invaluable if something happens, as video is often the best evidence the authorities can have when investigating a crime. They can see exactly what went down and who perpetrated it, including whether it was one person or a group of suspects.
- More robust solutions
Having a monitored security system takes the idea of a camera system to the next level. You have professionals monitoring your surveillance, and that means your security team can alert the authorities as soon as they see something suspicious. That could potentially mean dispatching them to your location while the crime is in process. The sooner the police get to your dealership, the higher the likelihood of catching the criminals — or stopping crime from even occurring.
When you manage a car dealership, you have many valuable assets. You need the best security you can get to keep them — and your bottom line — protected against the bad actors intent on ruining your set up. Alarms and bright lights are good deterrents, but a monitored security camera system is your best bet to keep your operations secure.
Contact Mobile Video Guard today to speak with an expert about any car dealership security questions you might have.
