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Aaron Steensma: Protecting Your Store During the Holiday Season | November 26, 2024 (0 comments)
Gunter, TX--The holiday season is a time of joy, celebration, and bustling activity. However, for jewelry stores, it also brings unique challenges. Increased foot traffic, high-value merchandise on display, and extended operating hours can make these businesses prime targets for criminals looking to exploit vulnerabilities. Ensuring the safety of your business, employees, and customers requires a proactive and comprehensive approach to security. With that in mind, I’d like to highlight five essential security tips to help your store maintain safety and success through the most wonderful time of the year.
Maintain Situational Awareness
Sales representatives are often the first lines of defense in a jewelry store. They control the keys to display cases, dictate the number of items shown at one time, and have the most interactions with customers. Educating employees on common warning signs is beneficial to safety and security. By being attentive and reading body language, sales representatives gain impactful insight into nonverbal cues being conveyed. Early identification of these warning signs can translate into being more cautious with a customer who may be acting suspiciously. Here are a few examples of things to be mindful of.
Concealing Identity: Customers attempting to obscure their identity upon entering the store may do so by wearing wide-brimmed hats, hoodies pulled low over their faces, medical masks, or sunglasses indoors. While any one of these items individually may not be cause for concern, a combination of two or more can raise suspicion and warrant increased vigilance.
Avoidance Behaviors: Customers who refuse to touch items or exhibit heightened awareness of security cameras and exit points may be employing tactics commonly used by "grab-and-run" thieves to minimize leaving evidence. To assess such behavior, consider offering the customer a drink or an item (of no value) to temporarily hold. A refusal to interact with objects may further raise suspicion.
Trust Your Instincts: If someone’s behavior feels suspicious, it is always wise to seek a second opinion. Engaging another salesperson or discreetly alerting on-site security can create a psychological deterrent for potential wrongdoers. When done tactfully, innocent customers will remain oblivious of any intervention.
Partner with Local Law Enforcement
Building a strong partnership with local law enforcement offers numerous mutual advantages. By proactively inviting officers into your store, you lay the foundation for effective collaboration. This can be achieved through multiple gestures such as inviting on-duty patrol officers to write reports in your parking lot or invite them in to visit and familiarize themselves with your products. Such gestures are appreciated by law enforcement officers and their visible presence can act as a deterrent to criminal activity. Regular communication with local law enforcement officers provides valuable insights into emerging crime trends, allowing jewelry stores to implement preventive tools. Additionally, welcoming law enforcement into your store enables officers to become familiar with the layout, which can be crucial in the event of an emergency.
Combat Fraud
The early detection of fraudulent loan applications, credit card transactions, and phishing emails is critical all year round. According to the Federal Trade Commission, losses due to fraud increased by 14% from 2022 to 2023, totaling $10 billion. This staggering figure continues to grow as scams become increasingly sophisticated and widespread. To mitigate risk, organizations should implement a standardized operating procedure that includes a robust system of checks and balances.
One prevalent scheme targets administrative assistants or employees managing financial transactions. A scammer, impersonating an executive, sends a text or email requesting immediate payment to a specific recipient, often claiming urgency and being unable to call and make the request due to being in a meeting. Caught in the pressure of a time-sensitive request, employees sometimes act without confirming the request's legitimacy, only to later discover that the message was fraudulent, and the funds are unrecoverable.
By adopting additional layers of verification, such as requiring a secondary confirmation step before processing payments or approving/ accepting loan applications, and releasing merchandise, organizations can significantly reduce their exposure to loss due to fraud.
Enhance Security Presence
With the increase in high-value merchandise on site during the holiday season, enhancing security measures is a critical preventative step. This applies not only during business hours but also after hours, as sophisticated burglaries are becoming more prevalent.
When selecting the appropriate security presence, several factors should be considered, such as uniformed versus non-uniformed and whether the guards should be armed. To ensure your store achieves the desired level of protection, select security personnel tailored to your specific needs. In some situations, a professional, armed guard service may be highly effective. However, when investing in security, it’s essential to remember that quality often correlates with cost—the cheapest option may not provide the level of protection required. Hiring off-duty law enforcement officers is often the most effective choice but typically comes at a higher cost compared to traditional security guards.
After selecting the best security presence for your needs, it is highly advisable to conduct training, such as tabletop exercises. Integrating security personnel into these exercises ensures that all employees are equipped with the knowledge and strategies needed to respond appropriately, maximizing their safety and the safety of your customers.
Don’t be a Hero
As the holiday season draws near, it becomes increasingly more important to emphasize the critical priority of safety for all employees. The well-being of staff must take precedence over any material possessions. In the unfortunate event of a robbery, the most effective strategy for survival is to avoid confrontation, remain calm, comply with demands, and avoid actions that could be perceived as threatening to the perpetrator. It is essential to remember that no item, no matter how valuable, is worth risking one’s life. Training and reinforcing these principles can help ensure that employees are prepared to prioritize their safety, minimize risks, and respond to such situations in a composed and effective manner.
By adopting these steps, jewelry stores are not only equipping their employees with the tools and confidence needed to handle potential threats, but they are also laying the groundwork for a robust and effective security strategy. This approach ensures the safety and success of their operations during the busy holiday season and provides a solid framework for maintaining security and operational excellence throughout the entire year.
Aaron Steensma is the President of Fortified Castle Consulting and a retired Police Detective in the North Dallas/Fort Worth area who specialized in residential and commercial burglary, theft, and robbery investigations. Fortified Castle Consulting is a company dedicated to supporting individuals and organizations through the development and implementation of robust security strategies aimed at crime prevention and threat mitigation. Fortified Castle Consulting owns The Castle Vault, a 256 bit encrypted, SOC 2cybersecurity compliant Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that allows users to safely store high-definition images and appraisals of valuable assets in a centralized online system. In the event of theft, natural disaster, or fire, users can easily download their stored data in PDF format and share it as needed. To reach Aaron, call (888) 344-2879 or email him at aaron@fortifiedcastleconsulting.com. For more information about Fortified Castle Consulting, please visit the website at www.fortifiedcastleconsulting.com.