Dealing with the Aftermath of a Business Break-In
When your business is broken into, it’s an upsetting and chaotic moment. You’re probably worried, anxious, and distraught. Plus, you’ll have to deal with police, insurance agents, and much more. This is time-consuming and stressful. Plus, after a business break-in, you’ll also want to take steps to make sure you protect yourself from this situation happening again in the future.
This is a lot to handle all at once. Here are some tips for what you should do after a business break-in.
Stay Calm
Staying calm is obviously difficult to do when your business has broken into, but it’s important. Whether you hear about the break-in from the police, your alarm system provider, or if you show up for work in the morning and see signs of crime, it’s shocking to realize your company may have been robbed.
Try to avoid tampering with the scene. Don’t touch or move anything that you don’t need to touch until the police arrive.
Call the Police
If the police don’t already know about the crime, call them as soon as you can. If you think that the criminals may still be inside or that the situation is too dangerous to enter, stay outside and call from your cell phone. Provide the police with as much information about the situation as you can and follow their instructions.
Call Your Insurance Company
Contact your insurance company and let them know the particulars of the crime. They will likely send an insurance adjuster out to review the property and/or provide you with the instructions you need to file your claim.
Take Inventory of your Assets
Look around your property and see if anything has been stolen or damaged. This includes merchandise that could have been taken from the scene, as well as anything that could have been damaged. Be as thorough as you possibly can. You may wish to have employees help you out. They can look around their workstations and help you recognize what could have been damaged or stolen.
Contact Staff and Customers
You’ll want to contact your staff and let them know what has happened. In the event of a break-in, you might have to close your business for a while to deal with police investigations, insurance claims, and repairs. Let your employees know what has happened and how long you may need to be closed. If you have regular customers or customers that are expecting you to be in the office working on their projects in the next couple of days, let them know as well. You’ll also want to tell any customers that have otherwise been affected by the crime. For instance, if you were repairing a customer’s computer and now it has been stolen, you’ll have to let them know.
Look for Weak Spots
The first thing you’ll have to do is look for immediate weak spots and repair them as soon as possible. For instance, if your front window or door was smashed open, you’ll need to get this fixed quickly to keep your property secure going forward.
You’ll also want to look for weak spots that made the crime possible, such as a lack of security gates on your side door or an ineffective lock on your windows. It’s also good idea to look for other weaknesses as well, even if they weren’t exploited in this crime. You never know what could happen next time.
Create a New Security Plan
Come up with a plan to prevent this crime from happening again. However, you’ll also want to strengthen your system to protect against other crimes as well. The next break-in might be completely different from the one you just experienced, so don’t focus only on preventing similar crimes. Create a plan that improves the overall security of your business.
