How to Select the Best Paper Shredding Company

How do you chose the best paper shredding company for your needs? After all, if you work for a major corporation you will use a different set of criteria than if you run a small mom-and-pop business of some sort. Here are eight tips that will be particularly useful for larger businesses but should help anyone.

1. If you are already working with a company for document storage or filing, find out if they also offer shredding services. Typically if you get multiple services from one firm, you do get a discount on the overall bill and of course it is simpler to work  with one company instead of two. But if you haven't been particularly happy with the document storage solution that you have been using, you could go the other way and search for a business to transfer storage to, along with paper shredding and hard drive shedding.

2. Ask around for recommendations on what companies do paper shredding well. You could ask people in other lines of work.

3. Search in Google, or your favorite browser, for paper shredding plus the name of your city or the nearest city. Examine the websites that come up and see what you think of them.

4. Explore companies that do on-site shredding. They will do it right in your building or in a truck with built-in equipment that they park just outside. If you do that, you can have someone from your team watch and be sure that all the documents are handled in a truly secure manner. This particularly matters if you work in a field where security is absolutely essential.

5. Consider how much paper your organization will need to have shredded and then choose a paper shredding service that has the right capacity to work with you. You want to avoid hiring a company that doesn't have a large enough capacity; that's pretty obvious. But you also don't want to hire a company that is only set up to handle much larger jobs than yours.

6. The laws on document destruction are federal, state, and sometimes local. In interviewing a firm to work with, talk with them about how they stay current on the laws. You will need a general sense of what the laws are, but it should be their job to keep up with the details. Find out if they will discuss any legal questions that you have or whether they will refer you to an attorney -- either position is acceptable, but it is good to know in advance what their stance is. 

7. They should have some form of confidentiality agreement that you (or your firm's legal department) can look over carefully. Be sure that it will cover every employee who is going to be handling the task of moving and shredding your papers.

8. Last but not least, look at the prices you will be paying. Consider the cost in the light of the way they do the shredding and along with how well they do their customer service.

Actually following up on all eight tips may seem a little bit daunting, but it is truly time well spent. Setting things up the right way is always worth the effort. With any luck, you will choose the very best paper shredding company for your needs.