Using CCTV Systems to Improve Your Business

If you’ve ever watched the SpikeTV reality show “Bar Rescue” or Bravo’s reality show “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover,” you’ve probably wondered what a surveillance camera in your business would show you when you’re not there to watch. In reality, CCTV systems can help you improve your business in many ways – and not just by playing gotcha with your staff. When you install a surveillance camera – or a few of them – you get the same chance that winning football coaches have when they view tapes of Sunday’s game: you get an overview of your business and how it works from a more objective position. Here are a few things you can evaluate and recognize when you install a CCTV camera in various important points in your business operation.

Efficiency

“Bar Rescue” plays heavily on the dramatic confrontations and the OMG-she-didn’t factor with employees, but when they get down to brass tacks to make recommendations, the fixes often focus on very practical points. One of the most common fixes is a simple rearrangement of the elements behind the bar. When you watch what happens in your restaurant, bar or service shop on a surveillance camera, it’s far easier to spot problems like poor traffic patterns. You may not notice how much time it takes to walk to the end of the counter to pick up a needed item, but when you observe it happening on the security camera 50 times a night, you recognize how much it impacts your staff’s ability to respond to your customers quickly and efficiently.

Customer Service Issues

On “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover,” the CCTV systems often show areas where customer service is poor, slow, sloppy or rude. It’s a reality show, so they obviously go out of their way to accent behavior that is downright rude and disrespectful. In real reality, though, customer service errors are often much subtler. Security footage can help you pinpoint where customers are let down – perhaps kept waiting at a counter while the one person on duty answers a telephone – and make the changes necessary to remedy the problem. You may realize that you need a second person at the counter during specific hours, for example, or notice that one or more of your staff needs a refresher course on the basics of customer service.

Obviously, CCTV systems are more often used to pinpoint serious employee problems or keep an eye on your staff. They have other uses, though, and helping you identify and remedy customer service and efficiency problems.