Cleveland property managers have no shortage of security guard companies to call. The hard part is telling them apart. Most proposals promise trained officers and good communication, and most of them look about the same on paper until something goes wrong on a January night.
SecureOne has been in contract security since 2002, and our Cleveland work centers on hotels, industrial sites and trucking operations. These are the questions I would ask any of the security companies in Cleveland before signing, including us.
1. Are you licensed in Ohio, and are your officers registered?
In Ohio, companies that provide security services are licensed through Private Investigator Security Guard Services, known as PISGS, part of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Licensed companies must also register their security guard employees with PISGS, which includes a fingerprint background check. Ask each company for its license number and look it up yourself. Ours is Ohio License #20242100523629. Then ask how the company confirms that every officer it sends to your site is registered.
2. Will you walk my property before you price it?
A hotel near Playhouse Square, a plant along the river and a truck terminal by the interstate need very different plans. A company that will quote your site without seeing it is guessing. Ask for a site walk, and pay attention to who shows up. You want someone who asks about your entrances, your loading areas, your busy hours and the incidents you have had, not just your square footage. SecureOne offers a free security assessment, and what we learn on the walk goes straight into the post orders your officer will follow.
3. How will my coverage change in winter?
Cleveland winters bring lake-effect snow, short days and long, cold nights. A post that is simple in June can be a very different job in January. Ask how the company handles exterior posts and patrol routes in the cold, where the officer warms up between rounds, and how it fills a shift when an officer cannot get in during a storm. Ask whether patrol checks are still logged and photographed when the weather is bad, because that is often when something gets missed.
4. Who answers the phone at 2 a.m.?
Every bid says the company is responsive. Ask what that means. Will you reach a person who knows your site, or a general call center? How quickly can a supervisor get there? At SecureOne, each client has a single point of contact available 24/7, our patrol vehicles are backed by a 24/7 command center, and our field supervisors visit sites weekly.
5. What will I see the morning after a shift?
Ask for a sample report and a look at the system behind it. Our officers file reports, photos and patrol checks in Vision Insights, our real-time security reporting platform, so you can see what happened on your property without waiting for someone to type up notes. Patrol vehicles carry GPS Insight tracking and in-car 360-degree cameras, which matters on a large yard where you want proof that every corner was checked.
6. How do you train officers for my kind of property?
Registration is the minimum. Ask what training happens after that, and whether the officer learns your site before the first shift. A hotel officer needs to be welcoming to guests while watching the lobby. A warehouse officer needs to know your dock procedures and which vendors are expected. We hire officers with prior military, law enforcement or security experience, and our in-house Director of Training builds programs around each client’s industry or facility.
7. What is behind the hourly rate?
It is tempting to sort bids by price. The bill rate covers the officer’s wage plus training, supervision, insurance and overhead, so when one bid is far below the others, something on that list is being cut. Ask what the officer on your post will earn, what supervision is included, how holidays are billed and what the contract terms are. We do not require long-term contracts, and we carry above-average insurance coverage and policy limits. SecureOne is not the cheapest option in Ohio, and we say so up front.
Call the references
About 76% of our new clients come to us through referrals from existing clients, so I always encourage people to call references, ours included. Ask clients with properties like yours how the company handled problems when they came up. That conversation will tell you more than any proposal.
If you would like us to walk your Cleveland property, request a quote at https://www.secureone.com/request-quote.html or call (888) 834-5285.