Does your security guard company have a mobile patrol division? If you don’t, chances are you have considered it in the past or are currently thinking about it. It has been pretty surprising and unexpected the number of companies that I have talked to over the past year and a half who now offer mobile patrols as part of their services. To be clear, I mean mobile patrols in the “Door Puller” sense of the term. This is a service where you have one officer driving to check on multiple client sites, several times a night, across a large geographic area. As I talk to more of these companies, the obvious benefits of this type of service become more apparent. What else has become apparent is that daily activity reports for mobile patrols are absolutely useless. If you don’t agree, let me explain my reasoning.
Beyond Daily Activity Reports: Providing Real Proof of Your Security Team’s Presence and Alertness Using An App for Mobile Patrol
First, let’s talk about why some security guard company customers put SO much emphasis on having their security officers submit daily activity reports. As we all know, daily activity reports are one of the ways that your customers try to account for what your officers are doing from day-to-day. But let’s think about that for a moment. Is a daily activity report really proof of anything more than knowing that your security officer can write? I can fill out a daily activity report right now and have you submit that to your customer. Does that mean that whatever I wrote on the report is accurate or truthful? Obviously not. But your customers want and need some type of reassurance.
In my humble opinion, please feel free to disagree, what your customers want to know is that your officer is not sleeping and is aware of what is going on at the site.
What better way is there to show that your officers are awake and alert than by using an app for mobile patrol tracking to perform verifiable patrols and submit incident and maintenance reports instantly? An app for mobile patrol allows you to provide customers with the ability to view your officers’ patrols in real time and receive immediate alerts in case of an incident or maintenance issue—offering invaluable transparency and peace of mind.
That is the type of proof and transparency that your customers want.
DAR’s For Your Mobile Patrol? Stop now!
Let’s apply that same logic to mobile patrols. For a location where a mobile officer is on-site for only 5-10 minutes, a daily activity report has little to no merit. What value does a customer get from a report that merely states, “All Secure”? Although some customers may push back against the idea of having “no proof” that the officer performed their duties, the decline of daily activity reports for mobile patrols is inevitable.
With an app for mobile patrol, security companies can now give customers exactly what they want: the ability to see precisely when the officer arrives on-site and receive immediate notifications of any incidents or maintenance issues. This level of visibility, offered by security guard management software, provides real-time proof that an officer was present and actively working. With that type of access, why would they ever want another daily activity report?
If you’re still using DARs for your mobile patrols, would you ever consider stopping? If not, why? Please feel free to share your thoughts below.
About the Author
Courtney Sparkman
Founder of OfficerReports.com and OfficerApps software suite
With 15 years of experience in operations and business development, Courtney is a trusted voice in the security industry. He is a renowned author, speaker, and YouTube creator dedicated to helping security guard companies thrive. His career began as a co-founder at Cequr Security and later as Director of Business Development at Diamond Detective Services. Currently, he holds a private security contractor license, and a degree in Agricultural Economics, and is pursuing a master’s in Emergency Management from the University of Chicago.
