How to greatly reduce the risk of ever needing a locksmith

1. Handing out spare keys to friends, neighbours, family or local staff is an obvious suggestion to remedy an accidental lock-out. It’s not fool-proof, though. A proper commercial key-holding service is better.
2. Make sure you know the phone-numbers of your home or office cleaners. The same goes for the estate- or managing agents in charge of your home or office premises. They may turn out to be a source of keys in the moment of need. Program them into your mobile phone - together with the number of a good locksmith.
3. If you are in charge of more than one safe, leave a spare key for one in another. Safe openings by a locksmith are expensive.
4. An electric garage door really needs to have a separate key-override, should the remote fail or go missing. The cheaper models often don’t have that.
5. A good lock needs a very occasional service. Some WD40 sprayed into the lock once a year should do. It’ll prolong its livelihood virtually indefinitely.
6. Commercial premises will often fare better with high security locks with copy-protected keys. It’ll dramatically reduce the frequency of lock replacements, because no one can illicitly copy your keys.
7. If in your line of business you frequently call out locksmiths, don’t use just one firm, use two. In the long run, what you will learn from each firm will reduce cost and call-out frequency. And it keeps both of them on their toes.
8. Find a safe place for the keys, master codes and manuals for your keypads, fob readers and the like. When you want to change any of the pin-codes, this will make you self-sufficient: You will no longer need a locksmith to reprogram your access control gear.
9. If you have key-operated desks, garage doors, lockers and so on, make up a spreadsheet with the key-numbers. Many locks are insufficiently or not at all tagged: having the key-number will allow you to simply order replacement keys instead of having the lock replaced.
10. If you have locks with high security or copy-protected keys or if you have a masterkey-system, make up a spreadsheet linking the key-numbers to the doors they will open. Many high security locks are insufficiently or not at all tagged: having the key-number will allow you to simply order replacement keys instead of having the lock replaced.
11. According to one popular estimate, 50% of locksmithing is just common sense. Perhaps you or your staff should have a go at resolving the lock-problem before calling out a locksmith?
12. If you are in charge of a block of flats, a hostel or any organisation, where many users have keys: charge the users a deposit for the keys, at best a hefty one! That way you can ensure that the users take great care of your keys. It’ll reduce the loss of keys considerably, and therewith the need for replacement locks as well!