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FAMILY, THE SOFT SELL, AND A PLAYER PIANO GIVE ALTER’S GEM JEWELRY ITS EDGE | June 27, 2012 (0 comments)
Beaumont, TX--Founded 98 years ago, Alter’s Gem Jewelry today embodies family and community spirit. Alter’s lives on the web here and on Facebook.
“The great hurricane in Texas City in 1915 wiped out my grandfather,” says Brian Alter, managing owner today at Alter’s Gem Jewelry. “He sold dry goods with a small jewelry department. He borrowed $3,000 from a local banker to start the jewelry store. After the storm, he pulled all his wares out and dried them out on the roof of the building. He then sold all he could to make sure he left no debt to anyone. He then picked himself up and went to Port Arthur, Texas. It was there he borrowed the money, with no collateral other than his honesty, his goal oriented drive, his ability to innovate and his inviting personality.”
Alter worked in the family business all through high school, attended law school and then practiced law in Houston. “One thing led to another,” he commented, “and the opportunity to try jewelry came along.”
When asked if being a former lawyer was helpful to him as a jeweler, Alter answers without hesitation. “Yes! Law school is the best education anyone can get. It teaches you to think like an attorney, not how to practice law. It teaches you about sides; that there are about 18 sides to every story, not two.” When relating this to customer service, Alter believes that seeing the various sides gives him an edge on customer service.
Along with outstanding customer service, Alter’s is known for its inventory selection and its wide range of brands. Hearts on Fire, David Yurman and Rolex lead a healthy list of designer jewelry. “We have an enormous amount of inventory,” Alter reports. Loose diamonds, diamond bridal and diamond fashion make up over 60% of Alter’s sales and inventory.
“We grade diamonds accurately,” says Alter. “We’re not a ‘buyer beware’ sort of place. We offer a straightforward, honest experience and we stand behind what we sell.”
Alter’s does manufacture jewelry, but not on the premises, preferring to keep the odors [from manufacturing] and the customers separate. “With the advent of internet, email and CAD/CAM, it’s most efficient to send those jobs to people that do manufacturing every day and do it well,” he says. “We send it out, we deliver on time, and we offer great follow through that hits the customer’s budget.”
Advertising directly and non-directly. Alter’s reaches their customer base via several different venues. The traditional marketing methods include radio and direct mail. He also reaches his customers with a softer touch, non-directly, through social media.
Alter handles the store’s Facebook account himself, along with a professional advisor. He’s been a Facebook member for several years. “I had to learn about it,” said Alter. “I spent 12-18 months playing on it to see where it was going and to find out how to make the best use of it. When I was capable of creating a company Facebook page, I set out to do that.”
As Alter notes, every community is different. In his community, he strives to keep his store at ‘top of mind awareness’ through his frequent Facebook posts and contests. He’s very clear that if he posts a piece and says ‘buy it,’ that won’t work. “It’s a communication medium for us, not a sales medium. Our customers respond better when we visit about it [a brand or a piece of jewelry], do a contest, etc. We’re not going to hit them over the head with it; we encourage participation. More a soft sell then a hard sell. We also try to create a chuckle since laughter creates memory.”
Alter’s e-strategy does not currently include an email newsletter – on purpose. “It’s something we want to get better at,” says Alter. “We learned from click-throughs on Facebook to be more careful with our newsletter.” Alter pays attention to his advisors. He has three, and one rather surprising. One is his web company, another is his Facebook advisor, and a third is one of his daughters, Devon. “She’s an expert in her field,” says Alter. “She deals with social media all day long. One of her accounts is Blackberry in South America. She lives in that media.”
Alter sounds like the proud dad he is when he talks about his children. He and his wife Lori have one son Daniel; three daughters, Devon, Carly, and Arianna, and four exchange student daughters, Frederike Hassels, Malory Havet, Leonie Elsner, and Lea Muller. While Alter’s wife does not work in the business, he says she always deserves a major mention. “It’s all about family around here,” he says. “If I had to give away all my jobs, the one I’d keep is being a dad.”
Alter’s children are not his only family – his staff rates that designation as well. His average employee has been with Alter for 15 years. He has 17 staff members and Alter’s is open six days a week.
“We’re here when our clients want to come in,” says Alter. That’s just one more way Alter keeps his customers happy. Alter’s Gem Jewelry is all about family and great customer service.
Other Interesting Facts About Alters:
- Alter’s catchy URL is www.hellodiamonds.com. When choosing a URL, “altersgemjewelry” was too hard. “We wanted something easy to remember and that gave us a universal web presence, not just a local one, hence ‘hellodiamonds.com,’” says Alter.
- Alter’s has published two cookbooks featuring local recipes as well as notable submissions ranging from Rob Reiner to Mario Batali to former First Lady Barbara Bush to Sybil and David Yurman and many more.
- There’s a piano inside Alter’s showroom (below). It’s a player piano. To Alter, the piano gives the image of elegance. Kids love to watch the keys move,” he says. “I like to tell them it’s “nearly headless Nick” from Harry Potter. They almost always smile, but know I am kidding. The store has great acoustics…once in a while we get a real talent, sometimes a child prodigy, who voluntarily sits down to play. The whole store kind of stops while that happens. Once the piano was used to propose…a young man wrote a song and played it for his now-wife, surrounded by candles and rose petals.”
- Alter’s Gem Jewelry burned to the ground on 12/12/99. Alter was escorted to the vault at 5:30pm by the fire department. He opened the vault door and water up to his thighs poured out. They opened the next day in an abandoned bank building, managing to salvage the holiday season.