A site manager rings on a Thursday. Plant is being delivered on Monday, he has just been told the site has no cover, and he wants a price now.
He cannot say how long the perimeter is, whether there is power, or how long the programme runs. Nobody can quote that, and by Monday the plant is sitting behind a fence anybody can walk around.
The checklist
Capture these and a call becomes a proposal.
1. The site address and what is around it
Urban, rural, overlooked, adjacent to a road, next to housing or backing onto open land. The surroundings change the risk more than the site itself does.
2. The size and the perimeter
Area is less useful than perimeter length, the number of access points and whether the boundary is complete. Most quotes turn on this.
3. The stage of the build
Groundworks, structure, first fix or fitting out. What is on site to steal changes completely between stages and so does what the client needs.
4. What is stored on site
Plant, fuel, copper, cable, tools, materials and anything with a resale value. Clients underestimate how quickly a site becomes worth targeting.
5. The programme dates
Start, expected duration and whether cover is needed through to handover. Long programmes price differently from a four week job.
6. The hours requiring cover
Nights only, weekends, twenty four hours or specific high risk periods. Many sites need far less than they assume and telling them so wins the work.
7. Power and connectivity on site
Whether there is a supply, whether it is reliable and whether there is signal. It decides what systems are viable and it is almost never mentioned in an enquiry.
8. Existing measures
Hoarding, fencing, lighting, gates and anything already installed. Building on what exists is cheaper and clients want to hear that, which connects to commercial fencing enquiries from sites and schools.
9. Whether anything has already happened
A previous break in, a trespass, an attempted theft or local reports. It changes urgency and it changes the recommendation.
10. Access arrangements for deliveries
Who arrives, when, whether out of hours deliveries happen and whether the security provision needs to manage access as well as deter.
11. Who else is on site
Other contractors, subcontractors and anybody working late. Cover has to work around the people legitimately there at odd hours.
12. Who is paying and who decides
Principal contractor, client or developer, and whether it sits within an existing framework. It determines how fast a decision can happen.
13. What the client actually wants
Deterrence, detection, response, or a documented arrangement for insurance purposes. These lead to very different proposals and clients rarely say which they mean.
14. Site visit or remote assessment
Whether you need to attend, how soon you can, and what can be assessed from photographs and plans in the meantime, which is the same capture problem as alarm and CCTV quote requests that need site details.
15. Answer when the enquiry arrives
Site security enquiries come in the evening after something has gone wrong, which is the same urgency as manned guarding enquiries from businesses.
Getting started
Publish what you need to quote, then capture perimeter, stage, dates and hours at any hour rather than staffing a phone, which is the arithmetic in an AI receptionist for moving companies. SpideyChat for security companies answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.