Consider More Than Cost When Choosing a Secure Shredding Partner

Finding a trusted partner to handle secure shredding of your confidential records requires due diligence on the part of the customer. It’s important that you are taking a variety of factors into consideration when choosing a vendor, not just price or availability.

If price is your biggest consideration, it’s worth considering what you will be getting for your money. Many companies are able to shred your documents at your facility or schedule appointments for large-scale purge jobs, but what other safe-guards do those organizations have in place to protect your information?

If you are considering finding a secure destruction partner for the first time, or you are on the hunt for a new vendor in the coming year, here are a few things to consider about the process.

Paper Collection: 

Is your partner providing you with tools and resources for secure paper collection in the time between scheduled secure shredding? If you are not securing your paper waste between visits, your information is still at risk, even if you’re storing it in your office.

Even if you are storing it in a locked cabinet, consider the extra cost of using that storage space to lock away paper waste. As a part of all of our scheduled shredding contracts, our customers are provided secure, locked collection containers to deposit their paper waste into between scheduled service dates.

Best Practices & Legal Requirements:

Are you or someone from your organization keeping up with the best practices for managing and maintaining secure destruction services within your organization?

This would include things like tracking destruction, knowing the specific requirements for destruction in your industry and keeping up with changing laws regarding information security, destruction tracking, and more.

Secure Shredding is our business, which means we stay up-to-date on ways to ensure we are keeping your records safe, throughout their useful life. This includes our processes and personnel, who are background checked, trained and uniformed so you always know who is handling your records.

Additionally, for those needing to witness destruction, our newest shred truck has a video monitoring system that allows you to watch your documents as they are destructed in the locked shredding unit; or you can schedule an appointment at our shred facility for larger destruction jobs.

Secure Shredding Certifications: 

When vetting your vendors for secure destruction, it’s worth looking for those who hold certifications specific to document destruction. The requirements for certification can give you a detailed look at how their process is monitored and audited to maintain high-security, high-quality destruction processes.

Augusta Data Storage is NAID AAA certified for Document Destruction & Hard Drive/ E-waste Destruction. This certification comes with a list of required items across a variety of areas including:

• Employee Screening
• Operational Security
• Facility Security
• Destruction Processes
• General Company Requirements
• Scheduled and unannounced audits, annually

By maintaining the requirements of this certification, we are able to help ensure you are meeting compliance requirements for document destruction within your industry.

Add-On Services: 

Another point to consider is consolidation of additional services. When shopping for a vendor, it’s worth looking for one that is able to offer you a variety of record storage and management solutions.

At Augusta Data Storage we are able to assist with your information security throughout the document life cycle. From long-term Records Storage to secure destruction and more, we are positioned to offer assistance with your records management process from start to finish.

If your office is heavy on digital record management, we can help with document imaging to convert your archived paper records for your new digital setup. In addition, our facility includes a climate controlled media vault for secure storage of backup discs and drives.

On the destruction side, we can help you securely destroy paper records, hard drives, and other electronic waste as a part of our NAID AAA certified process.

Consider Value, not price

When it comes to finding the best vendor to suit your needs, it’s important to consider the value of the services you are getting. Dig deeper and take a closer look at what a vendor is positioned to offer you and the additional benefits it can bring to your company.

If you are interested in learning more about our secure shredding services or any of our records management processes, contact us today! We look forward to talking with you.