What are the real needs of car dealership security: A serious look

Businesses are looking to increase their security coverage because theft and other criminal threats are on the rise. Car dealerships are no different. Because a dealership’s most valuable asset, their car collection, needs to be protected while also open to the public, they have some specific needs. This guide tells you everything you need in your car dealership security system.

See how Solink can help protect your business.

Car dealerships face many business challenges that can be mitigated by a security system. These range from the obvious ones, such as theft and vandalism, to less considered but often more expensive risks, including the potential for fraudulent insurance claims.

Here are just some of the threats faced by car dealerships today:

1. Car theft
2. Break ins
3. Vandalism
4. Employee and customer safety
5. Fraudulent insurance claims
6. False alarm fines
7. Low employee productivity
8. Difficulty attributing value to sales and marketing efforts

Car theft

Your vehicles need to be accessible to the buying public. You want them to be seen, touched, and experienced. However, that accessibility also means that dealerships place their cars at a higher risk of being stolen.

Break ins

While cars are the biggest and most obvious asset for dealerships, there are many other valuable items. Many car dealerships also have car shops, which can be filled with valuable parts and tires that have a known black market. If your dealership has a lending service, then you might also have valuable customer data which could be exploited by thieves.

Vandalism

Running a sharp object down a car could cause thousands of dollars in damage in seconds. At a large dealership, this can multiply out to a catastrophic number. That’s just the vehicles, too. Large showroom windows and other items could also be destroyed in minutes by someone looking to cause trouble. This destructive behavior can even include arson.

Employee and customer safety

Second, when a situation does arise, the Solink system is there to capture what happened, share it with the police, and make sure that the situation is resolved appropriately.

To see how Solink keeps your customers and employees safe, sign up for a demo today.

Fraudulent insurance and damage claims

While many companies aren’t thinking about fraud when installing a security system, being able to prove a single slip-and-fall event was an attempted fraud can pay for a lifetime of security.

Car dealership security systems need to be ready to face a second type of fraudulent insurance claim. Some people might be looking to get your dealership to pay for damage to their car. They may have a dent in a door and see their six-month maintenance check up as an opportunity to get your dealership to pay for the cost to fix the door.

False alarm fines

False alarm fines are going up all the time. That’s because the sheer volume of false alarms is taking limited emergency resources away from cities. In fact, some estimates put the total percentage of unverified alarms being false at 98%. In fact, many cities have stopped responding to unverified alarms entirely.

That’s why verified alarms are becoming more and more important. Solink Video Alarms provides video verification when the alarm is triggered. Then, when law enforcement is needed, you can give emergency responders real-time access to video feeds so they can better react to the situation.

To see how Solink can keep your cars safe overnight, sign up for a demo today.

Low employee productivity

Difficulty attributing value to sales and marketing efforts

Car dealerships often spend large amounts of money on advertising. It can be hard to understand why someone first arrived at your dealership and therefore which marketing tactics are working as well as which ones are not.

This problem can be mirrored by sales activity. Is your best salesperson the one who is greeting the most customers, or are they actually costing you money by not stepping aside for the ones who are most likely to close the deal?

These risks aren’t as overt as theft or vandalism, but they can be just as costly by hurting your margins every day. It’s also something that can be monitored by pairing your data with video in the Solink platform.

To see how Solink can help monitor the sales data of your car dealership, sign up for a demo today.

How to improve car dealership security

Car dealerships can improve their security in many ways. Some of them can be implemented today with little more than a staff meeting, while others require concerted effort.

Here are some things you can do to improve the security of your car dealership:

1. Install a video security system
2. Improve lighting
3. Use vehicle GPS systems
4. Lock up keys and fobs
5. Create roadblocks for tow trucks
6. Implement a strict sign out process
7. Sign up for video alarms

Install a video security system

Not all car dealerships have security cameras installed. However, CCTV cameras are a great deterrent to theft and vandalism. People are less likely to commit crime when they think they will be caught. If you want to go beyond the deterrence value of security cameras, then you should install a complete video security system.

Solink takes business security cameras and turns them into a functioning security system. By pairing video with other data sources, Solink gives you eyes on every process as it happens across your dealership.

When the deterrence value of your security cameras doesn’t work, Solink helps you resolve situations appropriately. You can quickly find the video evidence you require of an incident and then share it internally and externally.

Improve lighting

Finally, most car dealerships are on busy streets. Having better lighting will make anything happening on your lot visible to passersby. This engages the community in helping to protect your business.

As an added benefit, it keeps your cars visible overnight, which could help sales.

Use vehicle GPS

GPS tags can be temporarily installed in the vehicles on your car lot to improve the security. Then, if the vehicles are moved, you can be alerted.

Lock up keys and fobs

A stolen key or fob might be the first step in a planned car theft. Alternatively, someone may see unprotected car fobs as an opportunity to steal one of your cars and act spontaneously.

Either way, you should keep all keys and fobs secured so they are not used as part of a bigger robbery.

Create roadblocks for tow trucks

Criminals have been known to use tow trucks to steal cars from dealerships. Keeping the space between cars tight can make it harder for a tow truck to maneuver into place. Since police are usually not too far away, especially if you use video alarms (see below), delaying criminal activity can often lead to a failed attempt.

If your car dealership owns a forklift, you can go one step further. Consider placing concrete barriers at night that discreetly prevent movement of vehicles and then removing them in the morning.

Implement a strict sign out process

Sign up for video alarms

Solink Video Alarms are a great way to protect car dealerships. Video alarms turn your security cameras into an alarm system. This is better than a traditional alarm system for many reasons:

1. You can monitor any entire area (including outdoor areas) instead of just doors and windows.
2. When motion triggers an alarm, the owner of the system and/or trained professionals verify the threat before requesting emergency dispatch. Many law enforcement agencies are no longer responding to unverified alarms, so this leads to a better and faster police response.
3. Where police still respond to unverified alarms, false alarm fees can add up. Solink video alarms reduced false alarms by $125 to $600 per location per month in a recent comparison with standard panel alarms.
4. When an alarm is verified and emergency dispatch is requested, you can share the real-time video feed of your car dealership with the police. This leads to a more appropriate response.

To see how Solink Video Alarms can keep your vehicles safe, sign up for a demo today.