If you’ve been in this industry for any amount of time, you know that 1% of customers cause 95% of incidents at nightclubs and bars. All it takes is one. But being aware and proactive in protecting your venue and your customers can make all the difference.
“Bad boys, bad boys, whatchya gonna do? Whatchya gonna do when they come for you?” We all know the theme song from TV’s COPS. But as a bar owner, ask yourself a similar question: When the bad boys come, whatchya gonna do?
When people go out for the night, they want to have a fun and safe experience. It’s important to find a way to provide this experience to your customers by keeping troublemakers off of your premises. So what are the best ways to keep the troublemakers out? Here are five tips:
1) Ensure Their ID is Valid
Checking an ID to ensure that it is real and not expired is extremely important to protect yourself from liability and ensuring your premises
is safe. We recommend using an ID scanner (check out the mobile app VeriScan or VeriScan Online from IDScan.net) or hiring a professional to train your employees on how
to spot a fake ID. ID formats are constantly changing, so it’s important to stay up to date.
2) Reward the Good,
Punish the Bad
Loyalty cards and other incentives can be very persuasive in determining a patron’s behavior. By creating a strong loyalty program where you reward the good and punish the bad you can greatly persuade customers to be on their best behavior. To ensure this is successful, it is important to advertise your loyalty program to customers to make them aware of your VIP and Banned lists.
3) If You Kick Them Out, Make Sure They Stay Out
There’s no such thing as a one-time offender. Many of the club-goers who get kicked out tend to come back and cause more trouble. If you ban them from your establishment, make sure you keep them out and don’t allow them to sneak in when a different bouncer is on duty. Most modern ID scanners have this capability and will allow you to record incident details.
4) Talk With Your Fellow Club Owners
Many troublemakers will get kicked out of one club and simply move onto the next one. If you talk with your fellow club owners or share a list
of banned patrons with each other,
you can better protect your club and
make the night more enjoyable for your customers.
5) Let Them Know
You’re Watching
It is important to make customers aware that you know who they are. Placing cameras where customers can see them will let them know you’re being vigilant to keep your club safe.
Several bars, nightclubs, and restaurants in Minneapolis discovered that the same customers continually go door to door and cause all of their businesses’ problems. To eliminate this issue, these business owners began looking for a way to work together to keep the 1% of their customers that cause 95% of their incidents off their premises.
The best solution they found was a mobile app called VeriScan Online from IDScan.net, which allows businesses to share lists and instantly ban patrons from their establishments. Through this cloud-based solution, if a patron is kicked out or banned at one establishment and tries to go to another one, the owner will immediately receive an SMS or email notification upon swiping the person’s driver’s license at the door.
Steve Hark from Aqua Club in downtown Minneapolis is the leader of the movement to make the city’s nightlife a more enjoyable and safer experience. Since his adoption of VeriScan Online, eight other restaurants, bars, and nightclubs have started using the app and its shared list feature to keep dangerous customers from entering their venues.
IDScan.net’s VeriScan Online is a sophisticated ID verification system that provides a new standard for mobile ID scanning. Coupled with Honeywell’s industry-leading SL22 iPod/iPhone scanner, VeriScan Online turns any Apple device into a powerful ID scanning device that scans all drivers’ license from the U.S. or Canada, verifies age, and captures data into an online data analytics dashboard.
“Our goal is to provide a mobile solution that protects business from liability and keeps their premises’ safe,” said IDScan.net CEO Denis Petrov. “We fully support the Minneapolis businesses that have started working together to keep dangerous customers away from their establishments.”
IDScan.net provides ID scanning solutions that read driver’s licenses, military IDs, and other state IDs for access control, automatic data capture, and age verification. The company has 10+ years of experience in the ID scanning industry and has pioneered ID scanning for mobile apps, and clients include Sapphire Club in Las Vegas, Caesar’s Entertainment, Molson Coors, Hooters, and Borgata Casinos.
VeriScan Online, with the Honeywell SL22 scanner, is utilized for access control and customer relationship management. This solution provides a full suite of features including a magnetic stripe reader, 2D barcode scanner, image capture capabilities, custom groups (such as Banned and VIP), and online reporting tools. Because VeriScan Online is a cloud-based solution, it easily synchronizes information across several devices and geographical locations. VeriScan Online is available on the App Store and offers a 30-day free trial.
Of course, not all on-premise trouble takes place inside your venue. How can you protect your nightclub from the dreaded chargeback?
You’ve experienced it before. A customer comes to your nightclub, spends a lot of money, and a week later issues a chargeback through
their credit card company. This phenomenon is a result of something called “buyer’s remorse,” and it affects thousands of clubs all over the country on a weekly basis.
Chargebacks directly hurt your business’ bottom line and can lead to
a significant loss on your books. With chargebacks becoming a frequent occurrence in the nightclub industry, how do we protect ourselves from these costly transactions?
At IDScan.net, the company has developed a fully integrated system that helps you keep track of visitors and prove that they were on your premises. The program features integrated ID scanning, image capture, fingerprinting, and electronic signature into a system that is still easy-to-use, fast and efficient, and most importantly, effective.
Crazy Horse III in Las Vegas found VeriScan Plus and the M-280 scanner to have an immediate impact on their club’s operations. By utilizing it at the VIP section of their club, Crazy Horse III is able to quickly capture all of the customer’s credentials and information to protect themselves from fraud and chargebacks. The system is also fast and efficient, which allowed them to still deliver an extremely high level of customer service and an excellent customer experience.
