What to Look for When Hiring Security Company Services

Trackforce

May 13, 2019 · 13 min read

Business evaluating security company services before hiring

Growing businesses will likely require a reliable security partner to protect all the property, events, and people within their organization. However, choosing the right security company isn’t as easy as it seems. There are hundreds of security teams who claim to offer solid services, but many are unable to deliver. But before signing the dotted line and hiring a new security company, make sure you have all the information you need. Here’s 4 questions you need to ask before hiring any private security company.

Key takeaways

Licensing is the floor, not the bar. Every state expects a licensed company and a licensed officer. Confirm both, then judge the firm on everything that sits above that line.
Ask what training looks like after week one. Onboarding is universal. Ongoing refreshers tied to your site and its specific risks are what actually separate one vendor from the next.
The cheapest bid moves the cost, it does not remove it. A rate well under market gets funded from wages, supervision or training, and you feel it later as turnover and missed patrols.
Ask for the evidence, not the promise. GPS-verified tours, time-stamped reports and a client dashboard turn service claims into a record you can audit at renewal.
Ask which software runs the contract. A vendor running TrackTik can show you tour data, incident reports and SLA performance on demand. A vendor running on paper and spreadsheets cannot, however good the intentions.

Do They Have all Proper Required Operating License(s)?

Different states have different security operational requirements. However, all states require some sort of basic licensing or credentials for a security company to operate legally.

The first step is ensuring a security company has a Private Patrol Operators (PPO) License, which is regulated by the Bureau of Security & Investigative Services (BSIS) in California (most states have similar operating requirements). A PPO license grants the license holder the ability to hire employees that function as security personnel. In order to obtain a PPO license, there are a number of requirements including holding liability insurance.

Second, a security company must ensure that their officers are licensed. Security officer licensing in large part is to ensure that officers have the appropriate training. Some states have very lax licensing requirements, so it should be noted that officers may need additional training outside of what the licensing courses provide. To see the security officer requirements for your state, click here.

What Type of Training do Their Security Officers Carry?

Training must be an on-going priority for any successful security operation. The licensing process will provide the basics that a security officer needs, but as in any job, continued education is what makes a great employee.

Every company has basic on-boarding. This should include training on business operations, company processes, and job expectations. Frequent On-the-Job (OTJ) training is also essential. When a supervisor walks an officer around a new property, they ensure that the officer knows the ins and outs of each check-point. Through verbal questions and scenario role-play, a supervisor can gauge how well an officer is picking up the job requirements. This is also a helpful tool when officers are struggling to execute their duties.

Another great training resource is quarterly training workshops and seminars. Workshops and seminars are a great way to update officers on industry best practices, new training techniques, and any updated business operations. Continually training keeps officers alert and engaged with the company, the industry, and keeps training tools front of mind.

What Technology Will You Actually See as the Client?

The useful question is not whether a firm uses software, because almost every firm will say yes. Ask what that software puts in front of you, and how quickly. A vendor whose reporting reaches you as a PDF three days later is running a very different operation from one that can show you a patrol on a live map while it is still happening.

Ask for a walkthrough of the client-facing side during the bid rather than after signature. Here is what a well-run contract can reasonably put in front of you:

Patrol verification you can check yourself, with scanned checkpoints and GPS stamps from a real guard tour system
Incidents filed on scene with photos, time stamps and location attached, through security incident reporting
Reports that read clearly instead of in fragments, because ReportPro AI tightens the officer write-up before it reaches you
A view of coverage, response times and recurring issues by site, rather than a monthly summary, using business intelligence
One escalation path with a named owner, run through a command center instead of a phone tree
Invoices that reconcile against the hours actually worked, through contracts and invoicing

If a vendor cannot demonstrate these during the evaluation, it is reasonable to assume they will not appear after signature either. Firms running TrackTik hand this over as standard, which makes asking for the platform name a quick way to separate serious operators from the rest.

What are the Prices of Their Services?

When selecting a security vendor, everyone wants the most bang for their buck. However, you don’t want to give up quality service for the cheapest bid.

When a security company can justify their value, prospective clients are more likely to pay a higher price for better service. With security management and reporting software, companies have all the data and visuals needed to defend their pricing.

When building out a pricing structure, it’s important to take different business expenses into consideration, like patrol expenses and hazard pay. Once you have an idea of the businesses expenses that you need to cover, there are a couple of different strategies that can be used to calculate pricing.

There are also the Mobile Patrol cost calculators, a great plug and play resource to help determine hourly rates.

Six red flags worth walking away from

No licence number offered on request. A licensed firm reads it out without hesitating. Anything else is your answer.
A rate far below every other bid. Ask which line item absorbs the difference. It is usually wages, supervision or training.
Training described only as onboarding. Ask what happens in month six. If there is no answer, there is no programme.
Reporting shown as a sample PDF. A sample is marketing collateral. Ask to see a live account with real sites in it.
No named escalation contact. Call the office is not an escalation path. You want a person, a number and a documented backup.
Reluctance to discuss data ownership. Settle before signing who keeps the tour and incident records if you change vendor later.

How Long Have They Been in Business?

Longevity speaks volumes when selecting a new vendor. A well-established company with years of experience under their belt is likely going to have more proficient standards in place, as opposed to a new or newer company who is still working through growing pains.

The same logic applies when contracting a security company. An experienced security company will likely have established contacts with local authorities. They will be familiar with the types of local security issues and have measures in place so they can act appropriately when these issues arise.

Aside from the additional community insight, long-lasting security companies are likely to have a substantial number of referrals and reviews that speak to the quality of their services.

Security teams can benefit from understanding these tactics and use those tools to anticipate what their next potential contract will want to know.

If you are on the other side of this conversation and want to win more of these contracts, start with our guide to winning the best security contracts.

Questions to Ask Before You Sign

Most evaluations are decided by the quality of the questions rather than the quality of the brochure. These eight separate firms that run a disciplined operation from firms that describe one.

Ask this	What a strong answer sounds like
Can you give me your company licence number and a sample officer licence?	Both produced on the spot, with expiry dates attached.
What training happens after onboarding?	A named cadence, site-specific briefs, and completion tracked per officer rather than per session.
What is your officer turnover rate at sites like mine?	A real number with context. Firms that measure turnover are usually managing it.
Which software runs the contract, and what will I see in it?	A platform named without deflection, and a live walkthrough offered rather than an exported sample. Guard management and client visibility should sit in the same system.
Who is my escalation contact at 2am, by name?	One named person, one number, and a documented backup when that person is off shift.
How do you verify that a patrol actually happened?	Scanned checkpoints with GPS and time stamps from a guard tour app, not a signed paper sheet at the desk.
If I change vendor, who owns the tour and incident data?	You do, with an export path agreed in writing beforehand. This one is worth settling early.
How will you report against the SLA we agree?	An agreed set of measures on a fixed rhythm, drawn from the same system the officers work in rather than assembled by hand.

What Good Looks Like in the First 90 Days

Signing is the start of the evaluation rather than the end of it. Write into the contract that the first quarter is measured, and you keep leverage at exactly the point most buyers give it up.

Days 1 to 30: confirm the basics actually landed. Every officer licensed and on file, post orders written for your property instead of copied from another site, and checkpoint coverage agreed on a walk of the building with your account manager present.
Days 31 to 60: read the record, not the reassurance. Pull tour completion and incident reports yourself. Look at the difficult posts and the awkward hours, because the easy ones always look fine.
Days 61 to 90: hold the first real review. Compare performance against the SLA you agreed, look at turnover on your site specifically rather than company-wide, and decide what changes before the contract quietly auto-renews.

Hiring well comes down to insisting on evidence early, while you still have room to negotiate. If you also run security in house alongside a contractor, TrackTik gives enterprise security teams one tour, incident and reporting record across both, so contracted hours are held to the same standard as your own. You can book a TrackTik demo to see it against your own sites.

Frequently Asked Questions

There are two licences to verify, not one. The company needs its state operating licence, commonly a Private Patrol Operator licence, and every officer needs an individual guard registration. Ask for the company number and check it with your state regulator directly rather than accepting a certificate at face value. Then ask for expiry dates, because a lapsed officer licence on your property becomes your exposure as well as theirs. Our security guard license guide covers how the requirements vary by state.

Rates move with your market, the post type and the hours covered, so treat any single national figure with suspicion. What matters more is what sits inside the rate: wages, supervision, training, equipment and insurance. Ask every bidder to break those out. A rate noticeably below the others is not a discount, it is a different staffing model, and the gap is usually funded from officer pay. Three pricing strategies explains how firms build an hourly rate.

Coverage is driven by the property rather than by a headcount rule. Start from the hours that need covering, the posts that must stay fixed, and the patrol routes that need walking in between. A firm worth hiring will walk the site and propose a schedule with reasoning attached instead of quoting a number over the phone. Guard management software is what lets them model that coverage and show it to you before it is staffed.

Ask for licence numbers, the training cadence after onboarding, officer turnover at comparable sites, the platform running the contract, your named escalation contact, how patrols are verified, who owns the data, and how SLA performance will be reported. The common thread is that each one asks for evidence rather than intent. A firm that answers all eight without deflecting is usually the firm that delivers.

Through the record rather than the relationship. Agree your measures before signing, then read them yourself instead of waiting for a summary deck. Tour completion at the difficult posts, time from observation to escalation, report completeness and repeat incidents per location tell you far more than a monthly total. Vendors running business intelligence reporting can give you that view directly rather than assembling it by hand.

At minimum, a platform that verifies patrols with GPS and scanned checkpoints, captures incidents on scene with photos and time stamps, and gives you a client-facing view of both. TrackTik is the platform contract firms and in-house teams standardise on for exactly this, because tours, reports, scheduling and invoicing all sit in one record instead of three systems that disagree. Ask for a live walkthrough during the bid. A vendor who can only show you a sample export is telling you something useful.

Settle this in writing before you sign, not during the handover. You want the tour logs, incident reports and site documentation to be yours, with an agreed export format and a defined window to retrieve them. Firms that treat client data as leverage make switching expensive by design. Who really owns your security data covers what to put in the contract.

Long enough for the vendor to invest in your site, short enough that you keep leverage. One year with a measured review at 90 days is a sensible default. Watch the auto-renewal clause and the notice period more closely than the headline term, because that is where a mediocre one year contract quietly becomes a three year one. Tie renewal to the security operations evidence you agreed rather than to the calendar.