Personal Security When You’re an On-Site Technician

Unless you’re just a computer repair shop, you may need to send a technician on-site to a client. That creates some safety and security issues, especially with one-person shops. A little planning and a few ground rules will keep you safe.

Get Detailed Client Information When Scheduling

The two most critical pieces of information when you schedule an on-site visit are the client’s name and address. That’s a minimum and that’s just not enough. You should ask the first and last name, complete mailing address, email address and many phone numbers to reach them. That’s not just good for marketing, but it also keeps you safe. The more information you have, the easier people can find you in an emergency.

Sometimes a client is reluctant to give you that information. That should be a warning to you that there is a problem. When a client tells you “You don’t need that information,” I assure them it’s just to be able to reach them should a problem occur. We won’t be adding it to any marketing lists or selling it without their consent. If they refuse all the information we requested, we don’t go out. They may have a legitimate reason for keeping that private, but that increases your safety risk. It’s just not worth it.

Scope Out The Area on Google Before You Go On-Site

If you are unfamiliar with the area, find the address in Google Maps. This step will confirm you have the exact address. If you get lost on the way to a client, you might end up in a less-desirable part of town. If you do service calls in rural area, you might not even have formal street signs. That’s why you need to know where you’re going before you get there. Mapping out the location in Google and getting directions solves all these issues before you leave the door.

Give Someone Access to Your Schedule

If you are a one-person shop, you probably never think about this. You need to know where you are, so why tell someone else? If something happens to you, people won’t know where you are (or were). Let your significant other see your schedule and know how to access it. If you don’t have a special someone, share your schedule with a colleague or close friend. If any type of emergency develops, someone should know how to figure out where you were. Relying on GPS technology like “Find My Friends” isn’t enough. If your phone is stolen, damaged, or just out of juice, tracking won’t help.

Never Let Your Phone or Car Run Out of Gas

We’ve all been in a rush before and forget to gas up the car. A heavy day of social media drains your phone to single digit percents. That’s not safe.

You might think it’s obvious, but it’s still worth mentioning you don’t want to run low (or out) of gas in an unfamiliar area. A few emergency calls by clients might distract you from that quarter tank of gas turning into empty. I try to always keep a full tank of gas so it’s one less worry during the day.

For your phone, you’ll need a car charger and a wall charger. Most people do, but you also need a battery pack in your toolkit. In fact, it’s best to have two battery packs and swap them out. Just like your gas tank, a 25% charge gets down to 1% quickly and you never want to be without a usable phone. I keep an entire spare phone in my emergency kit.

Have a Comprehensive Emergency Kit In Your Car

A basic emergency kit has what the average person needs in a car emergency: first aid kit, spare tire, pump, jumper cables and maybe some hazard lights. Your job isn’t average.

Here’s what I have in my emergency kit. It’s a duffle bag in the trunk.

Spare phone with charger and battery pack-if I lose my phone, how will I call someone? I could drop it, lose it, or it could just fail. If it fails, I can swap SIM cards. If I lose the phone entirely, my emergency phone is on a pay-by-the-minute plan. That gets me out of a bind

Complete change of clothes-the obvious reason I keep this is if my clothes get stained or ripped at a client. It also helps if I have a car emergency and I’m soaking wet. I used this one time when a client had such a disgusting house, I had the need to change clothes immediately.

Food and cash – If my wallet is stolen, I need ways of buying some basic necessities. It’s not much, just enough to pay for a tank of gas. I don’t want to use that money for food, so I also keep a little shelf-stable munchies like jerky and nuts in that bag. That also comes in handy when I don’t have time for lunch.

Since I’m not handy at fixing cars, I also pay for emergency roadside service. I recommend the service even if you know how to change a tire. Most of these programs include towing if your car isn’t movable. You don’t want to be looking for a towing company if an accident happens.

Keep Your Vehicle Safe

If you’re fixing computers on-site, you probably have lots of tools in your car. That’s a tempting target for a thief. You want to protect against a “smash and grab,” someone breaking your car window and taking what they see.

Whenever possible, keep things in your car’s trunk. For that stuff you need to keep in the main cabin of the car, cover it. I keep a few large shopping bags in the car to cover valuable stuff.

These tips are especially important if your car has branding on it. That’s a target painted right on your car. One reason I like magnetic signs is I can take them off if I don’t want to advertise what I do.

One controversial thing I do is park in the client’s driveway. Service people don’t always do that. They’ll park in the street out of courtesy to the client. My opinion is safety overrides this problem. The closer to the client’s house I’m located, the less likely my car is to be broken into.

Avoid Cash Payments Whenever Possible

This is another area where I’m sure people will disagree on. When a client pays you in cash, you don’t have to worry about a check bouncing or a credit card chargeback. You have everything you need to take to the bank.

Towards the end of a day of on-site calls, that can mean several hundred dollars in cash. That cash can get stolen from your vehicle or your person. If you get robbed, it’s better the thief gets a bunch of checks written to you or your business. That won’t do the thief much good. Cash, however, is unrecoverable.

Don’t Be Afraid to Decline Service or Just Walk Out

That’s really the most important thing for you to remember. You are under no legal obligation to service a client on-site who you feel unsafe servicing. If you employ or contract technicians, give them the same permission to leave.

This isn’t the same as a client you don’t like or don’t feel comfortable with. Those are personality conflicts, they aren’t issues of safety. If something unsafe develops while you’re at a client (one time a drug deal went down in front of me), leave! If you think conflict might develop by you leaving, just gather your things and go out to your car. If the client is upset, it’s your choice to explain why. You can say that an emergency developed and you had to leave. In this case, the emergency was your safety. You’ll lose them as a client probably, but would you go back to a client you didn’t feel safe at?

Personal safety is your number one priority when servicing a client at their location. A little planning and some extra work will let you focus on taking care of the client, instead of worrying if you’re going to make it home safely.

Written by Dave Greenbaum