Do you work in a business where you handle sensitive information? Many companies do. From medical and legal offices to real estate and credit companies.There are a lot of places that could be repositories of personal data. With privacy laws becoming more and more strict, it is becoming more and more tempting to farm out your shredding to shredding services. There are a lot of benefits to taking your documents to an outside firm such as a shredding service to deal with them.
Top Benefits of Shredding Services:
- They give everyone a higher level of peace of mind. In recent years, data breaches have become almost commonplace. You hear on the news almost all the time that this company or that has suffered data breach and thousands of customers’ sensitive information has been stolen or compromised in some other way. When you use a shredding services company, you know that the documents and records that you give them will be properly disposed of. The information they contain can never be compromised.
- The information cannot be recovered. When you go with a reputable document shredding services company, they shred the materials in such a way that they can never be reconstituted. Therefore, the information on those documents cannot be retrieved or recovered. Once shredded, the mix is combined with the shredded files from other companies to make retrieving that information even more impossible.
- Shredding services keep you in compliance. For many kinds of businesses, shredding services are not optional. Some kinds of businesses, such as medical practices, have to comply with state and federal laws. There are significant penalties associated with non-compliance. If a business is found to have been negligent when handling sensitive data, they can be fined. The fines that are levied as a consequence are incredibly heavy and can run into the tens of thousands of dollars or more.
- Using shredding services can save your reputation. No company looks good when they have allowed their customers data to have been compromised. No company is immune from having their reputation hurt by such a breach. When Target was hacked and many of their customers’ data was stolen, it was very bad for their business. People did not want to shop at a place where their credit card information was not safe. That only makes sense. If your clients or customers’ data has the same fate with you, how do you think that will impact your reputation? Using a shredding services company can save you that worry.
- It is very cost effective. Think you can handle it all in house? Think again. The shredders used by professional shredding services companies are industrial strength. You may think that the shredders you have in your office can manage the volume of shredding but nothing on the market today for general office use can really handle high volumes of shredding. Your shredder will break down and then you will have to buy a new one. Add to that the fact that you have to have staff handle that, which takes them away from their regular job and you can see that it is actually more cost effective to outsource this to a shredding services company.
- It is good for the environment. All of the paper that is shredded by document shredding services companies is recycled. This saves it from going to landfills where it joins millions of tons of paper that arrive there daily. Paper that ends up in landfills adds to global warming. Paper that is shredded by a service is recycled.
- Helps you with customer trust. When you use a professional shredding services company, you can reassure your customers and clients that their sensitive information is destroyed in a secure process. This will show them that you take the security of their data very seriously. This will help your reputation and can help you grow your business. Consumers appreciate it when their personal data is protected.
Many companies think it is more cost effective to buy a few shredders and have their shredding done in house. Professional documents shredding services provide very good customer service at reasonable rates. They make it easy to provide customers and clients the peace of mind that comes with proper handling of their sensitive data.