As the national coronavirus lockdown begins to be lifted, commercial businesses are allowed to open their premises to the public for the first time in months. With non-essential retail shops already able to open from 15 June 2020, plans have been announced for pubs, bars, restaurants to reopen from 4 July 2020.
While this is excellent news for businesses and consumers alike, certain restrictions will remain in force to ensure the safety of both employees and the public. Social distancing, use of hand sanitiser, limiting the number of customers in the store, and keeping a watchful eye for symptoms of COVID-19 will all be part of this new way of working.
This puts a lot of pressure on the company owners, whether they’re running a high street store or a family bistro. The onus is on them to ensure the safety and well-being of their staff and their customers. These measures will help to reassure your customers and make them more willing to enter your business and spend money..
Here at Marpol Security, we can help you make the reopening of your business that little bit easier.
What Marpol Security can do for you
We have already been helping companies across the UK manage their vacant premises during the extended lockdown period. Now we’re in a position to help you open your doors again to your customers. Our mix of experienced and dedicated security staff and state-of-the-art technology offer several solutions that can aid your business at this challenging time.
Retail security guards
To maintain social distancing, long queues outside the store and limited numbers of customers inside will be commonplace. Trained and licensed security staff will play an important role in managing queues and entry into your store. They will also be on-hand to perform more traditional security roles such as identifying and stopping shoplifters. In the event of an incident at your store, our retail security guards will be supported by one of our mobile patrols in the area, who will be ready to provide immediate back-up.
Queue management guards
One of the key measures introduced for the continued safety of your staff and customers is social distancing. An important aspect of this involves limiting the number of customers in your store at any one time. This leads to queues outside your place of business as customers return to spend money in your shop. Managing those queues is important: left to their own devices, customers won’t know when it’s safe to come in. Our queue management guards can resolve this for you. They will keep a close eye on customers coming in and out of your store. This allows a smooth flow of paying customers without risking the health of any individuals. Queue management guards will also be able to ensure that all customers use hand sanitiser before they enter, as well as dealing with anybody causing a disturbance in the queue.
Fever detection cameras
While we’re all looking forward to successfully reopening, the country is not out of the woods yet. Should a member of your team or one of your customers present symptoms of coronavirus on your premises, you may be forced to shut down while your store, pub, or restaurant is deep cleaned. Since a key indicator of the virus is an increased temperature, our fever detection cameras are an excellent way to monitor people coming into your building. They can measure up to 30 people at a time from up to 7 metres away, provide incredible reading accuracy, and automatically focus on peoples’ faces, preventing false readings.
Occupancy monitoring technology
As we enter this new phase of post-lockdown shopping, technology is being developed to make the process easier for businesses shops and consumers alike. This includes automated occupancy monitoring technology that will gauge the number of customers in your store at any one time. Sensors at the entrance and exit will track the ebb and flow of your customers in real time. If there is room to accommodate more customers, a green light will show at the entrance. Once maximum occupancy has been reached, the light will turn red. This automated system removes the need for queue management guards, making it an ideal choice for the smaller establishment.