Testimonials/Customer Letters

All businesses everywhere operate under the assumptions that generating sales and positioning themselves for growth are the two key components for success in the global marketplace.  One factor that many business owners fail to acknowledge, however, is the importance of adequate disaster recovery plans.  The takeaway lesson learned from major catastrophes such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as well as smaller scale events such as fires or floods are clear. Proactively developing strong business contingency plans that incorporate measures for Vital Records Protection (VRP) for these types of unexpected disasters is the only way to survive one. For example consider the proactive approach used by the sales and leasing giant, Aaron’s Rents, Inc (NYSE: RNT). The Atlanta-based corporation is one of the leading rental and rent-to-own companies in the US. With more than1,300 company-operated and franchised stores across 47 states and Canada, founder R. Charles Loudermilk has taken the precautionary steps to protect his company.  Each Aaron’s Rents, Inc. location is equipped with two FireKing fire-resistant safes as well as at least one FireKing filing cabinet. 

Bill Sebastian, Director of Purchasing for all locations, comments on how imperative it is to ensure the safety of cash as well as vital company records in this way:

“The most important part of our business is collecting month after month from our customers who purchase or lease a product from Aaron’s Rents, Inc.  If our customer’s information were destroyed for whatever reason, we wouldn’t know who they are or how much they owe us.  Customer agreements are kept secure in FireKing fireproof filing cabinets, and we use the FireKing safes to store cash and other small objects, such as iPods, jewerly and camcorders.”

There are three operating divisions of Aaron Rents: sales and lease ownership, corporate furnishings, and manufacturing. The Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership division is the largest and fastest growing division, serving credit-constrained consumers in need of basic home furnishings, appliances and electronics. The Sales & Lease Ownership division has over 800 Company-owned stores and the rest of the locations are franchised stores.  Sebastian continues about the security policies in place for both company owned stores as well as the franchises:

“All of the company-owned stores are required by policy to have two FireKing safes and one FireKing filing cabinet, on the other hand, our franchised locations are not required, but almost all of them do follow our company guidelines when it comes to using FireKing’s UL-rated fireproof protection for the cash and other upfront items, as well as the vital records in the form of customer agreements.  We have been very lucky because there have been few disasters to put anything at serious risk, but we are ready for the moment something bad does happen.”

Unfortunately, not all organizations have the foresight to protect themselves from disaster like Aaron’s Rents, Inc.  Making what may seem like an expensive precautionary measure can prove to be the most economical decision once a disaster occurs.  The cost of replacing or reproducing vital company records, leases, deeds, titles, customer agreements, cash, merchandise, etc., will be astronomically higher than preparing your business in advance.  Your ability to recover from an unexpected tragedy is only as good as your business contingency plan and the tools you deploy to make the plan work and ensuring it includes the deployment of UL-rated fire-resistant storage solutions and containers, as evidenced by Aaron Rents, is one of the most crucial elements.