Travis Taylor Uses a Guard Tour System to Improve His Business

Travis Taylor Uses a Guard Tour System to Improve His Business

Travis Taylor has 13 years of management experience in the security industry and runs a mobile patrol operation. In an interview on the Silvertrac Extra podcast, he shared how moving to a digital guard tour system changed the way his team reports, communicates with clients and trains new officers.

Silvertrac is now part of Trackforce, and the lessons from his story apply directly to any patrol operation evaluating a modern security guard tour system such as TrackTik.

How He Uses the Guard Tour System

Travis loves how easy the system is to use, but the key element for him was the way it lets officers tell the entire story of their activities, from recording the initial issue to adding notes and photographs, cataloguing their actions and explaining the resolution. That is useful, Travis explains, not just for the client, who can see the timestamps, notes and photographs that put their mind at ease, but for the officers as well.

It makes them more of an advocate for the property and the client.

Travis Taylor, mobile patrol operator

Before the Guard Tour System, Travis and his officers were using a handwritten Daily Activity Report. He found that, since officers had to wait to get back to their vehicles before making their reports, they would often miss important details. For instance, officers that lock up a pool and kick out two people might forget to record who the people in the pool were by the time they make their report.

“The accuracy of the report and the timing of the report were two big elements of why we needed to get the system in play,” he says. If your team still relies on paper, here is why you have to go paperless with your daily activity report.

Handwritten Reports vs. a Digital Guard Tour System

Travis’s experience reflects a pattern many patrol operators see when they switch. Here is what changes.

Area	Handwritten reports	Digital guard tour system
When reports are written	Back at the vehicle, often from memory	At the checkpoint, as it happens
Detail captured	Text only, often incomplete	Notes, photos, timestamps and GPS location
Client visibility	Delivered later, if at all	Reports clients can review quickly
Officer onboarding	A supervisor rides along to show the property	Site notes and tasks guide new officers
Accountability	Hard to verify	Checkpoint scans and GPS show where and when

How It Changed His Operation

By improving the speed and accuracy of communication, the Guard Tour System allows Travis’ clients to become as active as they want to be in their security. They can easily see reports and have positive conversations with officers about the best ways to address certain issues.

These positive conversations replaced the negative conversations he used to have with clients who were upset about inaccurate reports or no reports at all, or who felt they didn’t even know the people guarding their property.

In addition to better client relations, the system made Travis’s own role in guard management much easier. In particular, he noted that it cut the time he had to spend on site training guards by 50%:

Before [our guard tour system], I would have to take myself and the patrol division leader… and go out and show them the property… ‘They’re dropping trash over here, this is where the homeless hang out, here’s the pool, here’s the laundry room.’ All of those things can be transpired with [the system] in such a fast amount of time because of the ability to make notes and tasks.

Travis Taylor, mobile patrol operator

With GPS marking and notes, Travis can remind officers what they need to do and hold them accountable without spending valuable time riding around on site. With these tools in place, he has the confidence to send almost anyone out to a property and trust that they’ll take care of all the necessary tasks.

Guard Tour System Features That Matter for Mobile Patrol

The capabilities Travis relied on are now standard expectations. When you evaluate a system, look for these features, all of which are part of TrackTik.

• Flexible checkpoint verification. NFC, barcode, QR code, GPS and manual check-ins, with the option to log an incident, display a message, open a report form or trigger an alert at each checkpoint.
• Optimized patrol routes. TrackTik Mobile Patrol designs efficient routes with built-in unpredictability and shows every run sheet progressing in real time.
• Reporting inside the app. With the TrackTik Guard Tour App, officers submit incident and daily activity reports without leaving the tour, using fully configurable templates.
• Manage by exception. Live data sends SMS and email notifications from the field, so supervisors only receive the alerts that matter.
• Officer safety. Panic buttons, lone worker monitoring and GPS geofencing help protect officers who patrol alone.

For a deeper look at getting value from these tools, see how to use a security guard tour system to manage your workforce.

How to Onboard a New Officer to a Patrol Route

Travis’s biggest time savings came from onboarding. Use this sequence to get a new officer productive on a route without a full ride-along.

1. Document the property. Add site notes for known problem areas, access points and client priorities.
2. Publish clear post orders. TrackTik Guard Management lets you require acknowledgement and attach photo, video or PDF instructions.
3. Build the tour. Place checkpoints where the client’s priorities are, and attach tasks to each one.
4. Run the first shifts with live oversight. Watch checkpoint progress in real time and message the officer if something is missed.
5. Review the reports together. Use ReportPro AI to turn rough notes into clear reports, then coach the officer on what a great report looks like.

Signs It’s Time to Upgrade Your Guard Tour System

• Officers still write reports after the fact instead of at the checkpoint
• Clients ask for reports you cannot produce quickly
• Supervisors spend hours driving to sites to check on officers
• You cannot see missed checkpoints until the next day
• Training a new officer on a route takes multiple ride-alongs

If several of these sound familiar, read the 5 signs it’s time to upgrade your guard tour system, and learn how clients respond when you let them see the work for themselves.

What Would Travis Say to Someone Considering a Guard Tour System?

If they’re in the security industry, I’m going to tell them not to, because that will give them one up with me. But for everybody else, the system’s fantastic. I can’t put into words what it means when accountability, customer service, and timely processes in our industry all match at one time.

Travis Taylor, mobile patrol operator

Want the same results for your patrol operation? Book a TrackTik demo to see guard tours, mobile patrol and reporting working together.