Beat COVID-19 with your Video Surveillance System

Like most businesses, you’re probably trying to figure out how to survive the upcoming weeks and possibly months of uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus is requiring us to come up with new ways to stay in business with limited staff and customers who don’t want to leave their homes.

If you have a video surveillance system, you already have some tools available to help earn revenue, keep customers informed, and even manage your business.

Use your existing security cameras to live stream services.

When your customers can’t come to you, you can go to your customers, well, at least virtually. Businesses have started using live streaming to reach customers; no travel required. Whether you teach fitness classes or provide financial consulting services, if you have video surveillance cameras, you might have a live stream studio ready for broadcast. 

Our favorite cameras are manufactured by Axis Communications. They provide the best quality audio and video along with a ton of extra features. One lesser-known FREE feature is the Axis Streaming Assistant. This piece of software allows you to hook into streaming services such as Livestream. Coupled with a ticketing service like Eventbrite, you could be selling online classes in no time. 

Show the world You’re open for business

If you can’t live stream, but you still want your customers to know you’re open for business, consider setting up a real-time video feed to your webpage, youtube, or Facebook live. Real-time feeds are an excellent option for IT services companies who want to let their customers know that the NOC is still on guard watching their networks. 

If you have a video surveillance camera already then you’re halfway there. With Axis cameras, a simple add-on from Camstreamer will get you up and running in no time. You can also schedule streaming to start and stop at certain hours so you don’t broadcast the cleaning crew after hours, although that might not be a bad idea considering the situation.  

Keep an Eye on the Office Remotely

Speaking of cleaning, is your cleaning service providing the extra deep clean needed to stop the virus? Remember, your video surveillance is always running, and not only can it be used for security duties, but it can also help manage your business. 

Many companies are now limiting on-site staff, making it difficult to keep eyes on your business, especially with multiple locations. With the right video system, you can easily see what’s happening in real-time across all sites on a single platform. 

Control Occupancy

As a business owner, you have a responsibility to keep employees safe during the pandemic. One component of the guidance provided by the CDC is to engage in social distancing. To accommodate this in our businesses, we work remotely, sometimes in shifts keeping the space needed to prevent the spread of germs.  

If you need to control crowding and occupancy in specific areas such as break rooms and conference rooms, you can use video analytics to determine when occupancy levels are too high, triggering an alert to management or security to take action.  

Watch the Place when you Aren’t There

At some point, we may need to leave our businesses while we wait out the worst of the virus. In this worst-case scenario, we want to make sure we have some level of protection of our business against those who may wish to take advantage of the situation. 

The best defense is an alarm system, but if you have video surveillance, you can make due in a pinch. Most camera systems allow for scheduled notifications when movement is detected. Configure motion notification to alert outside regular business hours. We recommend setting this up only on indoor cameras, as you don’t want an email every time the wind blows a nearby tree limb. 

Conclusion

As we work through the COVID-19 pandemic, we will need to use all the tools we have available. If you are using your surveillance system in other ways during this time, let us know, we’d love to hear about it and share it with our audience.  

If you’d like assistance with live streaming, configuring live video feeds, or making your surveillance system work for you, contact us today and we’ll get you back to work!

About the Author

Dave Womer is the President of Adirondack Cabling and Security. He has over 20 years’ experience working with companies to develop IT and software solutions to help solve challenging business problems.