Client Spotlight – A Silver Breeze, Inc.

A Silver Breeze, Inc.
Customer Spotlight, January 2017

Written by Stacey Gaskell

Joel Schlesinger is a 36 year old business owner that grew up in Brooklyn, NY but fell in love with Saratoga Springs and its small town atmosphere and unique “Saratoga vibe.” We recently spoke with Joel about his experience with purchasing and installing two very different surveillance systems.

Joel’s journey into the jewelry business began when as a twenty-six year-old jewelry salesman, an acquaintance offered him a kiosk for sale in the Wilton Mall. Joel purchased this business, A Silver Breeze (http://www.asilverbreeze.com), about 10 years ago, and the business has grown steadily since then. Originally interspersed over five brick and mortar locations, Joel has since consolidated into one large showroom paired with a healthy internet presence.

Joel recently moved his growing business onto Broadway so he could be in the center of everything downtown Saratoga Springs has to offer. Since making this move, the business has been expanding at a furious pace and bringing in many new lines. With this increase in business and staff, it quickly became apparent that they would need to add cameras to assist with management of inventory and customer service.

Since his sales floor consists almost entirely of small pieces of displayed jewelry, he needed to be able to see fine detail. Joel initially contacted a well-known surveillance company and bought, what he was promised, were high resolution cameras. Shortly after these cameras were installed, however, there was an incident, and when Joel checked the camera footage the detail just wasn’t there – the footage was useless.

“We had an issue with our old camera system that when you needed to get a close up to see if someone was actually taking jewelry or not, we couldn’t really see anything clearly.” It turned out that the picture was high resolution for an analog camera, but simply could not compare to the resolution of a digital or IP camera. Joel needed a better solution.

This time, Joel asked his landlord for a reference, and was told that the best company to do the job was Tech II Business Services. “I didn’t even look around. I just went with Tech II.”

As opposed to many scenarios where analog cameras are oversold as high definition, Joel says of Tech II, “Whatever I was told I would get, I got even more. My old camera system promised me a lot, but I didn’t get even half of what they promised. Tech II showed me a demo, which I appreciated, and it showed me exactly what I would get.” The installation team – Ron
and Andrew – quickly put Joel at ease. They made sure to confirm everything beforehand to guarantee that the camera angles were exactly what he wanted. “I was very thankful for having those two people come over. They were very professional.”

Joel recounted that there was one day when he was unable to be in the showroom when the installation team needed to pull some new wires. They came in, did what they needed to do, and then left the store in such immaculate condition that he wasn’t even sure they had been there.

Concerning the true High Definition cameras installed by Tech II, Joel stated, “The picture quality now is amazing. My biggest concern with jewelry is that I have to see clearly what happens if a something goes awry. I need to know exactly what’s going on, and with these cameras, I can do that. I want my customers’ experience to be good. I don’t even want them to notice the camera system, which could make them uncomfortable. After verifying with the manufacturing that it wouldn’t void the warranty, the installers even professionally painted the cameras to match my ceiling, further helping them blend in to the surroundings. Mike, Tech II’s salesman intimated that, due to their Platinum Authorized Dealer status with the manufacturer, this very eye-pleasing option was available.” Adding, “It’s better for everyone that we have a camera system, because things do happen, and when they happen, you need to have a good picture of what went on. I’m able to see this picture very clearly now, and I sleep much better at night, feeling that I know exactly what’s going on at all times.”

With the accessibility of today’s true High Definition camera systems, Joel can check in on the store 24 hours a day from any internet connected device – including using an app on his smart phone. “When I travel, I’m able to see the store like I’m there. It gives me peace of mind.” Recently, while away at a sales conference, Joel received a call from his alarm company alerting him that there may be an issue at the store. He didn’t want to call the police unless it truly was an emergency, so he took a moment to look at the camera feed on his phone. He was quickly assured that everything was fine. He was able to avoid anxiety and an unnecessary visit from the police while he was hundreds of miles away, unable to do anything to assist.

One of Joel’s favorite things about the app is that it allows him to view footage in low resolution or high resolution, which helps minimize data usage. He can get a good overview in low-res, and if greater detail is needed, switch over to high resolution. In a matter of seconds, that low resolution image is now transmitting at high resolution, with all the accompanying detail.

We asked Joel from some closing thoughts about his experience with Tech II, and he was gracious enough to say, “I would absolutely recommend Tech II. The process was very smooth and quick. They were responsive to my questions and did a professional job which went above and beyond my expectations.”

*Tech II Business Services, Inc. is not a licensed fire alarm and security company. Our surveillance installations are passive (i.e., non-detecting).

Video Surveillance Primer: https://techiibuisness.wpengine.com/video-surveillance-primer/