Plenty of Texas property managers look after more than one site. A management company may run apartment communities in Austin and Dallas, a logistics firm may have warehouses along Interstate 35, and a hotel group may own properties in several cities. Hiring a separate security company for each one is common. It is also how reports end up in five formats, invoices arrive from five vendors and nobody can tell you how the properties compare.
SecureOne has provided contract security since 2002, and in Texas we work from an office in Austin, with a Dallas office listed as well. If you are thinking about putting several Texas properties with one security company, these are the questions I would ask first, including of us.
Will each property still get its own plan?
One vendor should not mean one plan. A garden-style apartment community needs a patrol route through the parking lots and pool area. A high-rise needs someone at the front desk. A distribution center needs an officer who checks seals and paperwork at the truck gate. Ask whether the company will walk each property and write post orders for it, or simply copy the same hours to every address.
We walk each site before we quote it, and every officer gets site-specific training on that property before the first shift. Training continues after orientation under our in-house Director of Training.
Who is my contact, and can I reach them at night?
With several properties, you need one person who knows all of them. Ask who that person is, whether they can be reached at 2 a.m., and what happens when they are on vacation. Every SecureOne client has a single point of contact who can be reached 24/7.
Will I get the same reports from every site?
This is where one company pays off. When every officer files in the same system, you can compare properties side by side and spot the one that keeps having problems. Our officers file reports, photos and patrol checks in Vision Insights, our real-time security reporting platform. Patrol vehicles are tracked with GPS Insight and record with in-car 360-degree cameras, so you can see where an officer was and when. The property manager of an 1,800-home community in Phoenix told us our technology saved tens of thousands of dollars in their time alone.
How does billing work across properties?
Ask to see a sample invoice. You should be able to tell which hours went to which property without a spreadsheet of your own. We use WinTeam for scheduling and billing, which keeps the hours and the invoices for each site in one place.
Can you cover the whole map?
Texas is large, and a company that is strong in one metro area may be thin in another. Ask where its offices are, which cities it already serves and how supervisors will check on a property that is a long drive away. The Austin and Dallas pages on secureone.com list the Texas cities we serve, from Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin to Houston, San Antonio, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley. If your property is not on that list, ask us directly.
Are you licensed in Texas?
Texas regulates security companies through the Private Security Program of the Department of Public Safety. Guard companies need a company license, individual officers must be registered, and armed officers need a commission. Ask any company for its license number and how it keeps every officer’s registration current. SecureOne works in Texas under Security Contractor Guard Company License #B27337201.
How do you plan for Texas weather?
Summer heat, sudden storms and the occasional hard freeze all affect officers on outdoor posts and patrol routes. Ask how the company plans shade, water and relief for officers working outdoors, and how patrol officers report storm damage to fences, gates and lighting so you can fix it before it becomes a security problem.
Ask for references
About 76% of SecureOne’s new clients come to us through referrals from existing clients. A major transportation company manager told us that in 8 years with SecureOne there had not been a serious security related incident on the property. Call the references any company gives you, and ask how problems were handled, not only whether there were any.
A word about price
SecureOne is not the cheapest of the Texas security companies. Putting several properties with one company can save time and confusion, but the real saving comes from posts that are filled, officers who know the site and reports someone reads.
Talk to us about your properties
If you manage properties in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth or elsewhere in Texas and want to compare notes, call (888) 834-5285 or request a quote.