What are the Dangers to Auto Dealerships? 

Auto dealerships work like no other retail business, and due to their specific layout, they entice various unique dangers that could threaten the livelihood of your business. 

How many other businesses have all their assets on display in an often open access area? Very few, but for auto dealerships this is extremely normal and unavoidable.

Based on these factors, there are numerous dangers to auto dealerships which as an owner or manager is difficult to manage alone. 

Implementing a security plan to manage these risks could help prevent and reduce the impact caused by trespassing, but to do this, you need to understand the challenges you’re up against.

With over 20-years of experience in parking lot surveillance, we utilized the insights we’ve gained to share the key dangers to auto dealerships and how to prevent them:

What are the Dangers to Auto Dealerships?

Auto dealerships are unlike no other, and so are the dangers presented to it. 

Your products are your profits, lose them and you potentially risk your entire business and customer base. Therefore, it’s key you remain vigilant of the dangers to auto dealerships to help establish the best security plan to manage these.

Below walks through the main dangers to be aware of:

Vehicle Theft

Vehicle theft is one of the most common crimes associated with auto dealerships because you hold all your assets on display in your parking lot for all to see. 

There are various driving factors leading to dealership theft, especially following the development of keyless cars. 

Known as ‘relay theft’, keyless car theft is a growing concern because criminals are now able to exploit the signals of this system to unlock and start the vehicles remotely before entering the site and stealing. 

Due to the open design of auto dealerships, criminals can scope out your site, assess any threats, establish the best approach, and vehicles they wish to target.

Vandalism

Not all crime has a financial goal, and auto dealerships remain common targets of vandalism.

Their often open design and display of assets provides the perfect setting for criminals to cause large-scale damage with minimal effort or risk. 

From property damage and graffiti to vehicle tampering, your auto dealership could be plagued with problems, all of which are expensive to recover from.

This could be in protest or due to a disgruntled employee, but unfortunately you may not even be able to establish a clear reason behind the attack.

Find Out How to Prevent Vandalism at Your Dealership

Car Component Theft

Car components are in high demand, particularly those with high-value metal, but why is this?

Well, the simple answer is money. With metal prices rising, criminals are on the lookout for businesses and sites where there are high amounts of metal present, and your dealership is likely to be on their list. 

Vehicles include various metals, and with auto dealerships having multiple vehicles in one space, this is even more enticing. 

Criminals will find opportunity in your site to steal multiple car components within one visit, reducing risk for them whilst multiplying their profit. 

Catalytic converter theft is one of the most common stolen car components, being both easy-to-remove and worth a good profit. However, removing this leaves vehicles unusable and your auto dealership will be required to pick up the bill for this.

Protests

Auto dealerships can be the target of protests and leave your auto dealership vulnerable to vandalism and other crime due to heightened tensions. 

Unfortunately, due to many auto dealerships being open to external parties, they can easily become involved as targets during protests or even be at the centre of them.

Although protests do not escalate to this extent in all instances, your dealership still needs to remain aware of it as a risk.

Cybersecurity Threats

The vehicles on display are not the only focus for criminals, personal data of both your company and any customers may also be a target of theirs.

Cyberattacks are becoming increasingly more common over recent years due to the destruction and financial gain that can be created through such actions. 

However, when faced with them, businesses like yourselves face increased pressures regarding your reputation and future earning prospects.

Employee Safety Risks

Although many auto dealership dangers will increase at night, there is still a chance that crimes will be presented during times where employees are present on-site. 

If any type of crime occurs at your dealership, whether it’s violent crime or theft, this places your employees at risk.

As an employer, you are responsible for the safety of employees and if an incident does escalate where an employee is injured or worse, you could be held legally and financially liable for this. 

You’ll also likely face negative impacts on business and employee reputation.

Encampments

Open spaces like parking lots and auto dealerships offer the opportunity for homeless encampments to base themselves at, and with this comes various risks including vandalism and drug-use.

Due to the often open access, encampments can quite easily build on your auto dealership’s parking lot, potentially even using your vehicles to house themselves. 

Encampments can be difficult to remove once on the property and even if they do remove them, there’s a high chance of damage being left behind, in which you will be required to foot the bill of.

Proven Strategies to Prevent Vehicle Thefts

How to Protect Your Auto Dealership

As emphasized, there are several dangers to auto dealerships and your security needs to be able to manage this, otherwise the consequences could be disastrous. 

We’d always recommend that you implement a mix of small and large measures to cover all areas of your site and help maximize the prevention your dealership receives.

Below provides 7 steps you can take to improve your auto dealership’s security:

Install Mobile Surveillance On-Site

Mobile surveillance works as both a criminal deterrent and live monitoring and recording system that ensures you all-round coverage. 

You can utilize internal and external cameras to boost your security in all senses, however, most importantly you should ensure at minimum that your assets are protected.

Having vehicles on display without any protection is leaving them completely vulnerable to theft, vandalism and car component theft, all of which are costly to your business. 

However, some systems can be bulky or not be suitable for your site, so it’s important you establish the best system for you. Consider your layout, threat level, type of vehicles requiring coverage, and size.

At LotGuard, we have created an all-in-one parking lot surveillance solution that offers both criminal deterrence and high-quality monitoring and recording service also.

Taking only 20-minutes to install and requiring one parking slot, our Solar Surveillance Trailers are easy-to-install whilst packing a powerful security presence by standing up to 20 metres tall.

With audio deterrent features such as, sirens, blue lights, and live audio challenges to further prevent criminals. 

And in case this fails to prevent them, we back our Trailers with live monitoring and recording capabilities that help capture criminals in the act and support in legal proceedings.

Vet Your Employees

As much as all employers wish to think the best of employees, there are still risks presented to your auto dealership if an employee is looking to seek their own financial gain or damage towards your business. 

Therefore, to protect your auto dealership, you should ensure that stringent vetting takes place with any potential employees.

These checks will identify any previous criminal history they may have which will help you establish threat level to your business and prevent any individuals who could cause risk to your dealership from working for you. 

Add Lighting

Lighting or increased visibility on your auto dealership offers a visible criminal deterrent to any intruders by removing any opportunity of hiding under darkness or taking advantage of any dark spots.

Many crimes will take place under cover of nighttime, making it one of the most vulnerable times for your auto dealership.

Illuminating your parking lot will help to protect your stock and your property from illegal activity like theft and vandalism. 

Criminals are looking for easy targets and if there’s a chance where their identity could be revealed or they could be captured by Law Enforcement, they’ll lightly think twice about targeting your dealership.

Increase Cybersecurity Protection

Cyberattacks are on the rise and your auto dealership could be the next target, so before that happens it’s important that you boost the cybersecurity in place at your business.

This means implementing strong firewalls, securing any hardware and software, ensuring you have robust passwords, and improving employee cybersecurity training. 

By having this in place, it’ll make attacking your auto dealership more difficult and hackers are likely to completely avoid your business if found to be too tricky a target. 

Implement Access Control

Although you need to ensure customers can enter your auto dealership easily, this doesn’t mean you can’t implement access control measures to protect your business and limit any unauthorized individuals entering your site. 

Measures you can take is to reduce the number of access points on-site and implement perimeter fencing around the perimeter of your auto dealership.

This reduces the number of weak spots that criminals can target and creates a physical barrier against them. 

Other access control measure you can implement include:

• Employee ID sign-in and sign-out system
• Robust padlocks on access point during times where the dealership is closed or without employees
• Monitoring system such as, mobile surveillance to track who is entering exiting your site
• Booking system for customers to view vehicles at your dealership
• PINpad entry for out-of-hours access

The best access control will vary depending on your auto dealership’s layouts, location, size, and security requirements, so before deciding this you should review your site and assess your options.

Improve Employee Training and Work Policies

As the auto dealership owner, you are the main individual or individuals responsible for maintaining safety in the workplace and this includes ensuring employee training is to standard and work policies are up-to-date. 

Employee training can be used to educate your staff on any security procedures, steps they can take to protect themselves, and any expectations of them as employees.

However, to ensure that employee training is up to standard, you’ll need work policies that are up-to-date so that any information being provided to employees is high-quality and relevant to now.

Outdated or irrelevant policies could have serious consequences where employees are misinformed and placed in dangerous situations. 

Unlock Our Top Tips on Improving Parking Lot Safety For Employees

Remote Monitoring

Remote video monitoring will help take your auto dealership’s security to the next level, providing an additional, advanced line of defense that could be your business’ financial lifeline.

This service means that you have a monitoring center of trained security professionals watching your live footage, assessing potential threats, and responding promptly to proactively prevent the security risks presented by your dealerships.

Through the remote video monitoring that backs our Surveillance Trailers, they have various actions that can be taken to prevent crime, even calling Law Enforcement to the scene if the situation requires it. 

Most outdated surveillance systems still work retrospectively to resolve crime, recording the incident and working from there, however, remote monitoring is a more forward-thinking approach. 

With the LotGuard PRO Surveillance Trailers, you can be reassured that our monitoring centers have eyes on your auto dealership when you’re not able to.

Proven Parking Lot Surveillance For Auto Dealerships

With LotGuard’s parking lot surveillance solutions, we offer flexible, temporary solutions that mold to your auto dealership’s security requirements. 

No business is the same and we understand that, however, for most external surveillance will often fall low on their priority list. 

Fitted with high-quality, IR PTZ cameras, our Surveillance Trailers are designed perfectly for businesses like auto dealerships who need high-level security against the unique challenges they are faced with.

Time to place parking lot surveillance at the top of your priority list at your dealership by getting in touch with one of our security experts today!

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