The challenges for securing car and truck dealerships are many, and guards are a popular solution. Guards alone, or guards paired with regular video monitoring or video verification can’t respond fast enough to combat common crimes, like catalytic converter theft. The crux is that thieves will be walking out the door with new catalytic converters before the operator at the police station picks up the call and certainly before the police can arrive on-site. With video monitoring and video verification reduced from security/protection solutions to merely recording services only useful for forensics – how can dealerships augment guards to protect themselves?
The Minimum Viable Solution
On-site guards are often a logical choice for security at dealerships – having a physical presence during off hours is often deemed a deterrent in and of itself. However, dealerships often have multiple access points and an open environment. Combine those characteristics with cars of all sizes in a large parking lot and it’s no surprise that guards can (and do) miss a lot. There are other shortcomings with guards as the sole security solution – they can’t see everything at a glance and cannot be everywhere at once. They often follow a pattern which is easy to track; guards are human and some fall asleep, some might miss clues, some might not be in the right place at the right time. Dealerships need to employ a solution that gives them the advantage over would-be-thieves – they need a solution that leverages smart technology and state-of-the-art monitoring.
Applying Cutting Edge Technology to Security
There are a lot of security solutions out there, many of which are reactionary – meaning something happened at the dealership, perhaps an alarm notified someone to verify via video feed. By the time all this takes place, the thief is long gone and the damage is done. There is one key technology solution that goes a step further by leveraging smart analytics and highly trained intervention specialists to detect and deter crimes before they happen.
Proactive video monitoring, PVM, leverages machine learning to detect anomalies in activities and weed out false alarms, allowing the intervention specialists to focus on those alarms that matter most. A proper PVM deployment starts with smart site design planning, strategically placing cameras along the perimeter and ensuring that the intervention specialists have proper sight lines to key areas. This powerful combination of smart, machine-learning analytics and highly trained intervention specialists puts dealerships a step ahead of the bad actors allowing them to take a proactive stance against crime.
How to Actively Deter Crime
One of the most critical components of a successful proactive video monitoring solution is the ability to issue live, audio voice downs to intervene the moment those alarms are raised to the intervention specialists. In a stern, authoritative voice, these intervention specialists issue clear, concise warnings calling out key details about the individuals. These custom voice downs create an imminent situation for intruders with a 98% average deterrence rate. Not only does this active deterrence solve the need for immediate response before damage is done, it also addresses the issue of safety and liability. Incident specialists in a UL-certified facility are safe and sound, and can carry out their directive of issuing deterring warnings without safety concerns.
What would it be like to open your dealership on Monday mornings and be more likely to receive reports of deterred intrusions than losses needing to be written off?
To learn more, click here to see Netwatch proactive video monitoring in-action or download our brochure.
