Most of the security guard companies in Tucson will tell you the same things on the first call. They are licensed, their officers are professional and their rates are fair. Those claims are easy to make and hard to check, which is why the questions you ask before you sign matter more than the brochure.
SecureOne has provided contract security since 2002, and our Tucson office is on West Grant Road. These are the questions I would ask any company, including mine, before trusting it with a property in Tucson or the towns around it.
Do I need a posted officer, a patrol or both?
A good company will ask about your property before it quotes a number of hours. A hotel lobby or an HOA gate may need someone there every hour it is open. A row of storefronts, a self-storage lot or a group of rental homes may be better served by a patrol officer who checks doors and gates several times a night and then moves on.
Ask each company to explain why it is recommending what it recommends. If every answer is a full-time officer, or every answer is the cheapest patrol, the plan was probably written before anyone looked at your site. We walk the property first and build the coverage around what we find, and sometimes that means a camera trailer instead of a person.
Will the officer be trained on my property?
State training covers the basics. It does not tell an officer which door sticks, which residents need extra help or who to call when the gate arm breaks at midnight. Ask how a new officer learns your site before the first shift, and who checks that the training stuck.
At SecureOne, every officer gets site-specific training before an assignment, and training continues after orientation under our in-house Director of Training. We hire people with prior military, law enforcement or security experience, and our officers are First Aid and CPR certified.
Who answers when something goes wrong at 2 a.m.?
Sooner or later you will need to reach your security company in the middle of the night. Ask who picks up the phone. Is it a dispatcher reading from a script, or someone who knows your property and the officer on duty?
Every SecureOne client has a single point of contact who can be reached 24/7. When you call about a missed patrol, a schedule change or an incident, you talk to a person who already knows your site.
How will I know what happened overnight?
A security company should be able to show you its work, not just describe it. Ask for a sample daily report. Ask whether patrol stops are time-stamped, whether officers can attach photos and how quickly you can see an incident report.
Our officers file reports, photos and patrol checks in Vision Insights, our real-time security reporting platform. Patrol vehicles are tracked with GPS Insight and record with in-car 360-degree cameras, so you can see where an officer was and when. The property manager of an 1,800-home community in Phoenix told us our technology saved tens of thousands of dollars in their time alone.
Can you handle the winter rush?
Tucson runs on its own calendar. The cooler months bring winter residents and visitors, and the gem and mineral shows draw large crowds each winter. Hotels, retail centers, event venues and HOAs can all get busy at once.
Ask whether the company can add officers for a few weeks and scale back when the season ends, and how much notice it needs. We staff long-term, short-term and temporary posts, and our event security officers can work entrances, parking areas and crowds alongside your regular coverage.
Are you licensed in Arizona?
Arizona licenses security agencies and registers security guards through the Department of Public Safety. Ask each company for its agency license number and how it makes sure every officer’s registration stays current. SecureOne works in Arizona under DPS License #1003621. Treat a license as the starting point, not the reason to hire.
Can I talk to your clients?
References tell you more than any sales call. Ask for a few clients with properties like yours, and call them. Ask how problems were handled, not only whether there were any.
About 76% of SecureOne’s new clients come to us through referrals from existing clients. One Arizona HOA property manager told us that a 6 month crime map of the property showed not a single incident. That is the kind of answer you want to hear on a reference call.
A word about price
SecureOne is not the cheapest of the Tucson security guard companies, and we do not try to be. Our clients choose us for the attention to detail, the technology and the training behind each officer. A low hourly rate can cost more in the end if the post goes unfilled or nobody reads the reports.
Talk to our Tucson office
If you are comparing security companies in Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana or Green Valley, we would be glad to walk your property with you. Call (888) 834-5285 or request a quote at https://www.secureone.com/request-quote.html.
SecureOne Security Services, 890 W Grant Rd, Ste F, Tucson, AZ 85705