Churn Homemade Ice Cream & Coffee

Churn Homemade Ice Cream & Coffee

Churn Keeps Its Treats Cool and Employees Safe with Alarm.com

About the Company

Specializing in hand-churned ice cream and offering a full menu of coffee and espresso beverages, Churn serves customers at three locations in and around Pittsburgh. The signature product is made on-site every morning, with a regular menu of ten flavors and daily specials.

Founder Kelley Costa, who established the small business in 2015, uses Alarm.com for Business to manage more than 50 employees across all three shops (in Pittsburgh’s Southside and the suburbs of Fox Chapel and Gibsonia) and keep track of franchises. Churn uses Alarm.com for Business intrusion, access control, video surveillance, and temperature monitoring across its locations.

The Challenge

After an early break-in at Churn’s first location left valuable equipment damaged, Costa realized that she needed to install a unified security system. Additionally, as the business expanded to other locations, Costa needed an efficient way to manage employees and ensure that Churn’s sophisticated freezers and espresso machines were being used properly. She also needed a way to monitor temperature, which is critical for an ice cream shop; even a brief power outage can result in spoiled product.

Why Alarm.com for Business:

A single platform for monitoring multiple systems and locations
Using Alarm.com’s Enterprise Dashboard, which is accessible from Alarm.com’s mobile app or any web browser, Costa can check on all of her stores with a single glance—seeing which locations have opened or closed on time, or which doors are unlocked. If an alarm has been triggered, she can review video of the event right there on the platform.

"The Alarm.com platform enables me to manage all aspects of my business from all locations easily and conveniently."
– Kelley Costa, President and CEO, Churn

Total visibility around access
As Churn expanded, Costa sometimes had to float employees between locations—making quick access updates a necessity. She also needed a secure way to manage employee turnover, particularly for the ice cream shop’s summer and temporary employees. Using Alarm.com’s platform, she can quickly add and delete system users or buzz someone through a door—even from her phone when on the go.

"One thing I always had an issue with [before Alarm.com] was, as we grow and we float employees, what are we going to do when we take away their keys? Does that really get them out of our system? It's not that hard to make a copy of the key."

Remote temperature monitoring, with notifications and video
Using Alarm.com for Business’s unified platform, Costa can set alerts to ensure her freezers remain at the correct temperature. If she receives a notification, she can then confirm the issue by reviewing video.

"I get alerted once a temperature reaches 12 degrees, because a gelato case shouldn't be at 12 degrees…. I can then look at the camera and see [what is happening in the gelato case], ‘Okay, so is that 12 degrees? Is it going to go higher? Is it just in defrost? What's going on?’.... If we aren’t notified, then the product's going to melt."

Video systems monitors and protects employees
With Alarm.com's video system installed at her stores, Costa can be sure that her typically young employees are doing their jobs and handling complex equipment properly without having to manage them in person. When they have questions, she can offer guidance remotely with the help of the cameras rather than having to rush over to the store. She can also review footage of any problematic interaction within the staff or between employees and customers.

"We’ve had to use it more than once to pull up [footage from] a complaint between a customer and an employee, just to validate it and try to put it into perspective."

Alarm.com’s platform also makes it simple for Costa to search for relevant video easily and share clips with law enforcement when necessary, giving her employees an extra degree of security.

"[Employees] know the police are going to be able to catch anyone that causes mischief in our building. They know that they're going to get an answer to any problems that are caused within the business, and they know that they're going to be safe in this environment and that we're doing everything we can to create that for them."