There is talk of beginning to open up retail businesses and restaurants in certain states. And part of this opening up is making sure that both the staff and the customers are protected in the stores, restaurants, gyms, salons and many other retail outlets. The PPP loan program from the SBA has helped a certain amount of small businesses to stay afloat while waiting for an opportune time to resume welcoming customers to street stores. So, the situation is one of financial wherewithal, health and safety, and then the willingness for consumers to go out and shop.
One way that small businesses and large ones too can help the perception and reality of being safe while shopping or eating or working out is to have security guard services.
Here are the specific ways that security officers:
- Health and Safety: for stores or services that are trying out opening up or are “essential” the presence of security personnel is very helpful in reminding people to maintain the 6-foot safe distance, to wear masks in retail environments, to give safety reminders, and to be generally watchful.
- Financial Risk Lessened: quite a few companies are seeing a rise in criminal or cyber activity during the epidemic. Security officers, which can be 1 person or a team depending on the size of the need, are a frontline deterrent to those who would do steal or do harm to property and customers. There can even be terrorist-style attacks of sick individuals who must be prevented from mixing with customers.
- Consumer Confidence: the gold standard of retail success is traffic coming into your store or stores. No customers means no business, and no profit and no ability to maintain employees and lease/operating expenses. So consumers being confident in your store during covid-19 times is a psychologically critical perception for your establishment. Security guards do contribute to this psychology of confidence. Officers help build the reality that this particular store is safe to enter and shop around. Eventually, as we get more testing in place and screening becomes commonplace, guards may be an integral part of screening.