Any franchisee who has years in the quick service restaurant (QSR) business or who operates multiple locations will have seen it all when it comes to fraud and theft. But one such Solink customer found themselves stymied by a rash of internal thefts that exposed the weaknesses in their existing security measures.
This is a real case study of an American franchisee who was experiencing employee theft issues. For privacy purposes, their name and company have been removed from this story.
Mysterious Employee Thefts
For video surveillance and POS systems, this franchisee had long relied on products and technology from the same multinational vendor – but much of this investment had begun to show its age. About two years ago, he decided to upgrade one QSR location by switching to Solink. This gave him the opportunity to test a modern digital video surveillance system that features cloud video analytics subscription software for video integration with the POS system.
Months after this deployment, this location began to suffer from mysterious cash thefts. It quickly amounted to thousands of dollars. The franchisee and his location manager struggled to get to the bottom of it, frustrated with the time and effort they spent reviewing hours of video in search of answers.
The true value of the Solink platform rests with the customized dashboard its management software can create using searchable moments from a business’s transactions and video footage. Users can customize their own daily or weekly reports that are delivered to their desktop or smartphone for quick and easy review.
Modern data analysis and filtered search solves the crime, fast
The franchisee’s previous video surveillance vendor had also offered a service where data and video could be analyzed and reviewed to track specific incidents. There was, however, an additional fee attached to this service, and a turnaround time of several days.
With this in mind, the franchisee called up Solink’s support desk to take advantage of Solink’s video surveillance security system. He fully expected to be put in a queue and to pay a fee for the service.
Instead, he “almost dropped the phone” when he was told that a) there would be no cost and b) if he could provide day and time reference points, a dedicated customer support representative could provide an analysis right away.
Such prompt service, and at no additional cost, surprised the franchisee and reaffirmed his decision to switch from his previous vendor.
By coincidence, at the very same time that the franchisee was discussing the matter with Solink, his location manager, through their own devices, discovered the source of the internal thefts. A young employee, responsible for receiving deliveries and moving stock from the restaurant’s loading dock, would help himself to the cash drawer at the drive-thru window when he believed no one would notice.
Solink’s analysis corroborated this. In addition, the Solink customer support representative used our region mapping and search feature to quickly filter through hours of recorded surveillance footage to catch previous incidents of theft by this employee. This body of evidence was put together into a report for the police.
Proactive loss prevention platform with video and POS integration
The whole experience left the franchisee more appreciative of how powerful, cost-effective, and efficient a cloud video surveillance system can be, particularly when it is backed up by a world-class service and support team.
The franchisee also became more aware of the need for greater surveillance coverage. He has since extended his camera network’s field of view to capture more angles throughout the restaurant and outside of the drive-thru window. Instead of eight, 18 cameras are now installed at the location as part of his Solink theft prevention system.
As the legacy equipment at his other locations reaches its useful end of life, this franchisee is making the switch to Solink.
