In any industry, lower quality service providers count on uninformed consumers to attract new business—something that research proved decades ago and is still true today. Being a more knowledgeable purchaser of security services and products is important to ensure quality, and a thoughtful and repeatable contracting process helps prevent being swayed by sales promises that vendors can’t deliver. This article includes recommended practices for purchasing security products and links to manuals that can simplify and guide clients through the process of contracting for guard services.

Key Points

• Research shows how some service providers count on consumers to skip due diligence when contracting for services, which results in lower quality work and more consumer complaints.
• When contracting for security services, clients can drive better quality service by opening lines of communication with representatives, clearly defining expectations in advance, striving for a working partnership (rather than a client/vendor relationship), reviewing cost proposals only after companies are deemed able to meet contract requirements, and conducting a sufficiently thorough review of a potential partner’s background.
• When purchasing security products, purchasers should take a holistic view of a how it fits with the company mission and try to balance between focusing on technology that can address a specific problem and staying open to innovative technology that may help drive efficiency in unforeseen ways.

Cursory Reviews Open the Door to Lower Quality

In a fascinating podcast recently about why Google searches seem to have gotten worse,  researcher Ryan McDevitt described experiments he did back when business listings were almost exclusively printed in giant physical books (e.g, Yellow Pages, Golden Pages, Gelbe Seiten, Gula Sidorna, etc.).

Specifically, he wondered about all those firms that adopted company names to get listed on the first page of the alphabetically organized sections, by calling themselves “AAA Plumbing,” or “AAAA-Plus Plumbers,” and the like. These companies hoped to get business from consumers who did not have the time or inclination to do much comparison shopping—perhaps those facing a plumbing emergency—and who would be content in hiring a company simply because they saw their name first.

But, McDevitt wondered, were the companies utilizing this bit of advertising trickery to gain attention providing service quality that was any better or worse than the firms that didn’t use this trick?

McDevitt conducted a study to compare company names with plumber quality as measured by data from the US Better Business Bureau. He found that firms using attention-seeking trickery (the “AAA”-type plumbers) were: a) more expensive, b) provided inferior quality service, and c): had higher numbers of consumer complaints. He also found that many of the low-quality firms listed themselves under multiple names (“A1 Plumbers” and “AAA Plumbers” being the same company, for example) and that these companies had the very worst track record for quality.

Nowadays, of course, looking for a company to provide a service usually starts with a Google search, but McDevitt says the same logic exists in the online environment. Firms that do everything they can to grab a consumer’s attention often do not compete on quality. “Now they’re blanketing Google with a bunch of listings, blanketing Google maps with a bunch of listings, trying to win the first ad slot on Google just like [with the yellow pages], and all these behaviors are consistent with trying to attract uninformed consumers who aren’t going to search a lot,” said McDevitt.

In fact, his updated research showed that plumbing firms that gamed Google’s search algorithm to drive business had 13 times the number of consumer complaints than firms that didn’t. He uncovered one company that actually didn’t mind the fact that consumer complaints were piling up against his firm, because each and every complaint also represented a link to his business, which was helping driving better visibility for his firm in search queries (such is the way of the Internet). “The logic [for the companies] that are trying to attract these one-off customers who are searching quickly is that those are the consumers you can rip off.”

Become a More Informed Security Consumer

Being a more informed consumer is important to help drive higher quality services, and it applies to security as well as plumbing. Clients or individuals that don’t take time to investigate a potential security partner or adhere to a game plan when purchasing security products, are more likely to be disappointed.

In interviews conducted in conjunction with IOMA’s Guard Firm Rating Report, a study conducted every three years to learn how clients rated their security firm on key issues, company security representatives regularly cited the following five strategies as most important for ensuring a successful relationship with a guard provider:

• Establish an open line of communication and personalize your relationship with representatives from the provider to whom you report problems, set goals, and monitor performance.
• Clearly define your expectations prior to initiating a working relationship with a new provider.
• Strive to meet common goals through a working partnership, rather than allowing a generic client/vendor relationship to exist.
• Only review cost proposals from companies after they have been determined to meet all contract requirements and qualifications.
• Conduct a sufficiently thorough review of a potential partner’s background to be comfortable with its reputation, viability, and business ethics, and assess its resource capacity to ensure the firm can truly deliver on contract requirements.

In addition to these critical elements, contracting for security personnel should follow a rigorous process to drive success, such as the one outlined in the manual, “Buying quality private security services,” developed by the Confederation of European Security Services (CoESS). Similarly, the International Security Ligue has developed a list of recommended practices, including a 4-page checklist for ‘Building an Effective Private Security Partnership,’ in Procuring and Managing Contract Security for Municipalities and Public Authorities, part of the Ligue’s Practical Insight Series of white papers.

Although evidence is overwhelming that the contract security industry has improved, even casual reading of news reports is often enough to remind end-users that substandard performance—and the embarrassment that can accompany it—remains stubbornly common. Global regulation of the contract security industry remains weak, with requirements often set too low to guarantee the satisfactory performance of private security personnel. Unreliable contract security firms are increasingly rare, but the industry’s equivalent to the “AAA Plumbing Company” described above has not disappeared.

Besides shopping carefully, companies should consider taking more time to ensure site-specific training for contract security officers. When the number of guards isn’t too large, additional training may not be too burdensome and seems to make all the difference in the world. One loss prevention manager for a non-profit organization in the US says that after he gave his contract officers 25 hours of training—the same security training he provides to all store employees—he noticed an immediate improvement in their reliability, loyalty, and performance. He noted that it didn’t require any additional effort on his part to include the officers in their company training, and “now I have a much better guard force; they’re more observant and they do a lot better job.”

Being an informed consumer is also vital when shopping for security devices and products. A bigger security budget doesn’t translate seamlessly into better security, experts warn. The most critical issue isn’t necessarily the size of a budget, but how it’s spent: Did the right programs get funded? Was the company thinking of risk from a holistic viewpoint, or did they invest in expensive point solutions?

A security “master plan”—a document that takes a broad look at threats and vulnerabilities and roadmaps the future of security—helps improve a company’s ability to prioritize and provides a basis for answering key questions about how a new security product purchase fits with organizational priorities. These include:

• Does it foster the company’s stated vision and mission?
• Does it relate to a prominent issue facing the business?
• Does it have senior management’s commitment?
• Will it address a source of common complaints?
• Is it likely to secure adequate stakeholder buy-in?

To be a smart shopper of security technology, there are experts who suggest security teams cut through the mass of products by shopping for technology with specific vulnerabilities in mind that they want it to address. For example, in advice at a global security conference, the Global Security Director for Amazon.com advised “to base your decision on what your objective is, not the product itself.” The manager of corporate security for the City of Ottawa advised organizations to “determine the product after you determine your objective, not vice-versa.”

However, others warn that limiting one’s research of recent technology to specific areas of known vulnerability can result in missing solutions that enhance security in ways that an organization didn’t know were possible.

In a confusing marketplace, in which the capabilities of technology are both exaggerated and capable of fundamentally changing how security is best delivered, it is important for company security leaders to keep abreast of what is available without being enticed into addressing problems that don’t exist. This is why, in the fast-moving world of security technology, the counsel of trusted security partners can be invaluable.

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