Press Room

Bazaarvoice and the Center for Generational Kinetics Release New Study on How Millennials Shop

jrobichaux — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:49:30 +0000

Monday, January 30, 2012

First-ever survey reveals that Millennials trust people over brands – and value the opinions of like-minded strangers as much as those from people they know

Key findings:

44% percent of Millennials trust experienced consumers over friends and family – versus 31% of Boomers.
69% of Boomers trust friends and family over consumers when it’s time to buy – versus 56% of Millennials.
51% of Millennials state that user-generated content (UGC) from strangers is more likely to influence their purchase decisions than recommendations from friends, family and colleagues – only 34% of Boomers agree.
84% of Millennials report that UGC from strangers has at least some influence on what they buy.

Austin, Texas – January 30, 2012 – Millennials – currently in their mid-teens to mid-30s – will have more spending power than any other generation by 2017. According to Talking to Strangers, a new study released today by Bazaarvoice in partnership with The Center for Generational Kinetics and Kelton Research, Millennials shop in a whole new way from previous generations. The study finds that while all generations trust opinions of other consumers over brand messages, Millennials are far more dependent on these opinions when making purchases and, unlike their forebears, are just as likely to rely on the experiences of strangers they consider “people like them” as trusted friends and family.

Far from being overwhelmed by information, this generation is constantly connected and dependent on social. In fact, 84% of Millennials are comforted that they have access to the opinions and experiences of strangers, and they strongly feel that companies should offer more ways for them to share opinions and experiences online.

Talking to Strangers: 30-Second Take-Aways

The new study, available here, offers a fresh picture of Millennials as they research and buy today. This socially dependent generation actively uses Facebook (80%), as well as YouTube (49%), Twitter (28%) and Google+ (25%), and are much more likely to share both positive and negative experiences with brands via social channels (42% and 32% respectively) than by emailing their friends or calling up the company. This generation often understands social better than the brands trying to reach them, and makes its own rules of commerce.

Millennials Don’t Buy Without Consumer Input

Millennials have been exposed to more advertising messages than any other generation in history. As they browse store aisles or contemplate the “buy” button, they trust UGC more than other sources – and won’t complete many purchases without it.

Majority (65%) of Millennials find that UGC is more honest and genuine than other information they find online, and 86% feel that UGC is generally a good indicator of the quality of a brand, service, or products.
Over half (51%) of Millennials trust UGC more than other information on a company website (16%), news articles about the company (14%), or advertising (6%) when looking for information about a brand, product, or service.
84% of Millennials report that UGC from strangers has at least some influence on what they buy.
Top purchases that Millennials won’t complete without UGC include big ticket items like major electronics (44%) and cars (40%), as well as hotel stays (39%), insurance policies (30%) and travel to specific destinations (32%).

Millennials Trust Anonymous Consumers

Millennials want to hear from friends and family, but when the time comes to lay down cash, the opinions of strangers like them – especially those with direct experience of the brand, product, or service – have more weight than they do for Boomers. Millennials are also much more likely to turn to social channels, not just personal connections, to find feedback from experts and people with common interests.

44% of Millennials are more likely to trust experienced consumers (who happen to be strangers).
51% of Millennials state that UGC from strangers is more likely to influence their purchase decisions than recommendations from friends, family, and colleagues – only 34% of Boomers agree.
69% of Boomers are more likely to trust loved ones (rather than other consumers) when it’s time to buy, versus 56% of Millennials.
Millennials are more than three times as likely as Boomers (22% vs. 7%) to turn to social channels when looking for opinions on products or services to buy.
As part of the research process, more than twice as many Millennials would look for UGC on the site where they were making the purchase as would solicit Facebook friends or Twitter followers (45% vs. 22%).
Far from being overwhelmed by information, most Millennials (84%) are comforted that they have access to the opinions and experiences of strangers.

Millennials Question Companies’ Motives – But They Still Want to Engage

Millennials question the motives of companies that collect customer opinions. They believe that companies only care about how they look to other shoppers – they don’t really take feedback seriously. Millennials strongly feel that other consumers care more about their opinions than brands do, but they still want to be part of the conversation.

71% of Millennials say companies care about customer opinions simply because they impact how other consumers will view the brand, rather than truly caring what their customers think – and Boomers agree (73%).
The majority of Millennials (73%) and Boomers (70%) agree that other consumers care more about their opinions than companies do – and that’s why they continue to share their opinions online.
Millennials view companies that include customer feedback on their websites as “honest” (66%) and “credible” (53%).
Millennials (87%) and Boomers (86%) agree that companies shouldn’t edit customer feedback by correcting spelling or grammatical errors.
Millennials feel more strongly than Boomers (64% vs. 53%) that companies should offer more ways to share their opinions online in the future – and they’ll continue to participate.

Comments on the News

“Millennials have grown up in a world where word of mouth is shared and found just as easily on a blog or in a product review as it is around the water cooler or at a dinner party. The result is that this generation expects to have access to opinions from people like them no matter where they are or how they shop. Brands that don’t understand and embrace this shift are making a huge mistake as this generation becomes a dominant economic force.” – Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice.
“Asking for feedback isn’t enough anymore. To make big gains, brands need to make Millennial customers the hero by displaying their opinions and experiences everywhere in the purchase cycle – and across mobile, tablet, site, and store. And brands can prove that they are taking these opinions to heart by changing products and policies based on social data and showing Millennials the results of this change.” – Erin Mulligan Nelson, CMO of Bazaarvoice

Additional Resources

Methodology: The Talking to Strangers survey was conducted among 1,013 nationally representative Americans ages 18 and over by Kelton Research between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5, 2011. More information, as well as the full report, is available at www.peopleoverbrands.com
Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit http://www.bazaarvoice.com/

About Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice’s Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions have powered more than 280 billion customer conversations on brand web sites like Best Buy, Blue Shield of California, Costco, Dell, Macy’s, P&G, Panasonic, QVC, and USAA. The company connects organizations to their influencers through a unique network that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers around the globe, enabling authentic customer-powered marketing. Through syndication, analytics, partnerships, and consulting, Bazaarvoice brings the voice of the customer to the center of their clients’ business strategy, proving “social” can drive measured revenue growth and cost savings for manufacturing, retail, travel, and financial services companies. Headquartered in Austin, the company has offices in Amsterdam, London, Munich, Paris, Stockholm, and Sydney. For more information and access to client success stories, visit www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarvoice.com/blog, and follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bazaarvoice.

About The Center for Generational Kinetics

The Center for Generational Kinetics converts generational trends and predictabilities into breakthrough opportunities.

We study what works to make the most of every generation in the marketplace and workplace. We then look at why it works and how you can benefit from that knowledge. The outcome is cutting-edge content, training, and thought leadership designed for leaders who demand results. This is what we do. It's all we do.

At The Center for Generational Kinetics we focus all our efforts on delivering tangible ROI for our clients around the world. Learn more at www.GenHQ.com, via Facebook.com/JasonRyanDorsey, and at www.GenHQ.com/blog

About Kelton

Kelton is a market research and strategy consultancy that works with some of the world’s largest and most recognizable brands to help them better understand and connect with consumers. Kelton provides highly customized qualitative and quantitative research for a wide variety of companies across multiple sectors including many in the Fortune 500.

Bazaarvoice And Buddy Media Partner to Link Customer Engagement Across the Web

mwilson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Monday, January 30, 2012

Integrated Social Application Enables Brands to Boost Customer Engagement and Forge Deeper Relationships By Bringing Customer Conversations About Products and Services Into Social Media Campaigns

Bazaarvoice, a market leader in bringing the voice of the customer to the center of business strategy for more than 700 global clients, and Buddy Media, the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world’s top ten global advertisers, today announced a partnership to help brands integrate online customer conversations in their social media campaigns. Westin Hotels & Resorts is the first to use the joint offering on facebook.com/westin, which will be showcased at the upcoming Social Media Week on Feb. 13-17, 2012.

Launching today, “What’s Popular Right Now” is the first social application, or “sapplet,” to result from the partnership, allowing companies to seamlessly integrate Bazaarvoice customer-generated content into their Buddy Media-powered brand pages and social media campaigns. Brands first define the category of products or services to feature in their campaigns. The most popular products or services – based on customer conversations such as ratings, reviews, comments and shares – are then promoted within the sapplet, encouraging consumers to scroll through and interact with the brand’s Bazaarvoice content and share their experiences with their friends and across their online networks. In addition, fans clicking through the sapplet are directed to the specific brand destinations, increasing traffic to the brand site.

“Building on Starwood’s successful launch of ratings and reviews, we’re expanding the program to our social channels like facebook.com/westin,” said Clay Cowan, Vice President, Digital for, Starwood Hotels & Resorts. “Individually, the Bazaarvoice and Buddy Media products have been powerful tools, and combining these services was an organic fit for Starwood’s guest engagement strategy.”

“For six years, Bazaarvoice has been helping brands bring the voices of their customers into the heart of their business,” said Mike Svatek, Chief Strategy officer at Bazaarvoice. “Our solution enables our clients to create authentic conversations with their consumers, scale the reach of those conversations throughout the purchase path, and uncover and act on valuable insights. As brands strive to make the most of social networks, we’re enthusiastic to partner with Buddy Media to generate greater product awareness on social networks, deeper engagement with fans and followers, and increased conversions from social media.”

“The Buddy Media social marketing suite is built specifically for brands to power connections with their customers and fans. In this case, the capabilities of Buddy Media and Bazaarvoice aligned perfectly to build a unique product,” said Michael Lazerow, CEO of Buddy Media. “This solution helps brands like Westin build their business and provide a better experience for their online communities. Creating the ability for people to communicate with each other at scale is what social media is all about.”

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 1,071 properties in 100 countries and territories with 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, and the recently launched Aloft®, and Element SM. The company boasts one of the industry’s leading loyalty programs, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), allowing members to earn and redeem points for room stays, room upgrades and flights, with no blackout dates. Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

About Buddy Media

Buddy Media is the social enterprise software of choice for eight of the world's top ten global advertisers, empowering them to build and maintain relationships with their consumers in a connections-based world. The Buddy Media social marketing suite helps brands build powerful connections globally with its scalable, secure architecture and data-driven customer insights from initial point of contact through point of purchase. Buddy Media is the most award winning social enterprise software company, winning the prestigious TechCrunch “Crunchie” Award for Best Enterprise application, named to the Advertising Age 2011 "Digital A-list," and CEO and Founder Michael Lazerow was selected as 2011 New York Entrepreneur of the Year® by Ernst and Young. For more information, visit http://www.buddymedia.com.

Bazaarvoice and Badgeville Form Strategic Partnership to Help Global Client Base Use Gamification to Increase Reputation, Customer Loyalty

mwilson — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Badgeville’s Behavior Platform now available to Bazaarvoice’s network of 260 billion customer conversations

Bazaarvoice and Badgeville today announced a strategic partnership that will – through game mechanics – provide reputation and social loyalty programs to Bazaarvoice’s network encompassing more than 260 billion customer conversations across its global client base. Bazaarvoice’s solutions now will be integrated with Badgeville’s Behavior Platform to increase contribution of customer-generated content and online social sharing.

The joint offering focuses on three key objectives to drive loyalty and revenue for brands:

Increase onsite engagement. Design and implement gamification campaigns to encourage customers to interact with content across a company’s site. Results include helping shoppers discover new products and services, leading consumers to helpful articles and reviews, and encouraging people to share recommendations with friends.

Create additional brand advocates. Enable customers to establish an on-site reputation that drives loyal behaviors and reinforces trust and credibility. Incent customers with game mechanics to interact with the brand by rating products, writing reviews, answering questions and engaging in discussions -- core features of the Bazaarvoice platform.

Reward loyal customers. Recognize the most loyal customers with special achievements and reputation rewards, such as badges and leaderboards, via on-site profiles and customer reviews. Tie gamification campaign metrics to loyalty programs, and credit loyal customers for creating content about product purchases and social product sharing.

“Our partnership with Badgeville has delivered as much as a 200 percent increase in key business objectives like content contribution and social sharing for global clients,” said Mike Svatek, Chief Strategy Officer at Bazaarvoice. “By tapping consumers’ desire to be helpful to fellow shoppers, as well as challenged and recognized, gamification will accelerate the rate that word-of-mouth is spread, benefiting all consumers worldwide.”

“The strategic partnership between Bazaarvoice, a market leader in bringing the voice of the customer to the center of business strategy, and Badgeville, a leading provider of SaaS gamification solutions, represents a significant opportunity for businesses to increase consumer engagement,” said Wanda Meloni, Principal Analyst, M2 Research. “Gamification will be one of the most prominent trends in the social enterprise for the coming years because it provides real results for business.”

Badgeville, which was recently named as one of Forbes’ Most Promising Companies, delivers sophisticated gamification and reputation solutions to more than 100 customers, including dozens of the Fortune 1000 companies and the world’s most innovative brands.

“Gamification and reputation programs have become exponentially more important throughout the enterprise landscape. Together with Bazaarvoice, we will enable its roster of global clients to achieve increased lifetime customer value, loyalty and revenues, with proven techniques to measure and influence user behavior,” said Kris Duggan, Badgeville CEO.

About Badgeville

Badgeville, the Behavior Platform, makes it easy for business leaders, marketers and innovative technologists to use smart gamification techniques to increase user loyalty and engagement across eCommerce, Media & Entertainment, Health, Education, Services and Enterprise web & mobile experiences. Using Badgeville, brands can reward users with real-time achievements and reputation, while at the same time driving user behavior, achieving specific business goals, and measuring and optimizing user engagement. Badgeville customers include Samsung, CA Technologies, X.Commerce, NBC, Bluefly, Interscope Records, Deloitte Digital, and The Active Network. Founded in 2010, Badgeville is based in Menlo Park, California and has offices in New York and Europe. For more information, visit Badgeville on the web at http://www.badgeville.com/.

New Bazaarvoice Quarterly Conversation Index Pinpoints Trends to Watch in 2012

mwilson — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Quarterly report takes 5.8 million data points – real input from consumers directly to Bazaarvoice clients – and uncovers trends to help brands get and stay ahead in 2012

Bazaarvoice today released its second quarterly Conversation Index that illuminates who is talking, what they’re telling each other, and how it matters to brands and entire industries. This Conversation Index provides a window into real-world customers and offers strategies for turning new insights into business-building action.

Bazaarvoice today released its second quarterly Conversation Index that illuminates who is talking, what they’re telling each other, and how it matters to brands and entire industries. This Conversation Index provides a window into real-world customers and offers strategies for turning new insights into business-building action.

The Conversation Index: 30-Second Take-Aways
This edition of the Conversation Index takes 5.8 million data points on what consumers need and want and distills these words, opinions and experiences into the trends that will help brands stay ahead in 2012. The complete Conversation Index is available here, and key findings include:

Mobile: Browsing is just the Beginning
Consumers increasingly use their mobile devices throughout the entire purchasing process – far beyond just browsing. The Conversation Index indicates that mobile and iPad optimization should be a top priority – including mobile transactions, and allowing consumers to engage directly with a brand by sharing feedback and even rating content assets.

• Transaction revenue coming from mobile devices tripled this year (around 2% in 2010 to around 6% in 2011), evidence that shoppers are using mobile for more than just browsing or bookmarking to buy later.
• The percentage of mobile visitors to Bazaarvoice client sites on Black Friday more than doubled to 12% in 2011, up from 5% in 2010.
• Holiday 2011 saw the iPad usage (40% of mobile visits) beat that of the iPhone (30%) and Android phones (25%).
• iPad users now account for more and more content submissions, not just views. In April through September, the iPad gained ground as the preferred mobile device for submitting feedback.

Financial Services: Social Data Is the New Currency
Not all consumers are created equal. By getting savvy about the wants and needs of different customers, marketers can speak the right language, engage the right way, and avoid sentiment flips as the customer lifecycle progresses.

• Long-term customers are less satisfied – but more vocal. New customers rate products 8% more positively, on average, than long-term financial customers (20+ years), but 77% of all long-term customers would recommend their financial firm to others (the second largest segment of promoters). Long-term customers create 32% of total product reviews (more than any other group) and write about 30% more content.
• Older consumers are not keeping quiet. 19% of review volume comes from those ages 66 or older (as compared to 25% from clients ages 25 to 34) proving that older folks are socially savvy.
• Newer customers want “easy” while long-term customers want “courteous.” Customers of less than 4 years use words like “easy,” “helpful,” “awesome,” “happy,” and “experience” in their reviews while more tenured customers (10+ years with the firm) use “courteous” and “convenient” in their reviews. Words that reverberate across all review content include “great” (highest, in about 18% of content), “friendly,” “quick” and “simple.”

Consumer Input: Table Stakes
When making purchase or service decisions, consumers turn to first-person opinions and insights from other consumers like them. Brands that succeed will garner consumer input and use these trusted insights to fuel decisions everywhere consumers buy: online, via social, on mobile devices, and in stores. Companies also need to avoid mistakes that can negatively impact word of mouth.

• On Black Friday 2011, consumers were served nearly 730 million impressions of user-generated content on Bazaarvoice client sites, a 39% increase over 2010 numbers.
• Cyber Monday served up nearly 789 million impressions of user-generated content, a 42% jump from Cyber Monday 2010.
• Almost half of customer reviews that mention problems with shipping are one-star reviews – the worst rating available on the five-star scale. This rating is 80% lower than the average star rating for products overall.

Comments on the News
• “We are hardwired to share opinions, recommendations, and input with each other. Now social gives consumers a direct link to the brands they are talking about. There is a huge responsibility that comes with this always-on, direct and authentic input, and a tremendous opportunity for brands to take actions on what consumers really need and want. We look forward to continuing to be a guide in what is mostly unchartered territory. This is the first time in human history where word of mouth is a digital asset and a new understanding of age-old human practices will continue to rapidly form.” – Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice.

• “Social data comes fast and furious, and the brands who can turn this data into doing will gain a big advantage in the year ahead. Brands need to make sure that they are prepared to capture, analyze and, most importantly, act on these insights to catapult beyond loyalty to real advocacy.”– Erin Mulligan Nelson, CMO of Bazaarvoice

Additional Resources
• Download the full report: The Conversation Index
• Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com

Garnet Hill Exemplifies Best of Holiday 2011 Marketing Strategies: Authentic, Customer-Focused, and Data-Driven

mwilson — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:06:52 +0000

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Leading clothing and home décor retailer uses Bazaarvoice to create, listen to, understand, and act on authentic customer conversations in critical retail season

Retailers continue to keep pace with shoppers who are turning to each other for product information and opinions – both online and in store -- as the 2011 holidays move into the final stretch. On Black Friday, Bazaarvoice served consumers nearly 730 million impressions of consumer-generated content – and nearly 789 on CyberMonday.

In this changing retail environment, Bazaarvoice today spotlighted Garnet Hill for its innovative, customer-focused holiday marketing strategies using Bazaarvoice for ratings and reviews. The clothing and home décor retailer, who is known for unique, original designs, has retooled almost every aspect of its holiday shopping experience to incorporate authentic opinions and testimonials from brand advocates and holiday shoppers. The holistic effort extends from catalogs and interactive Give Guides through the brand’s Facebook and Twitter presences, and includes a long-term strategy to act on conversations and social data to drive true change.

“Garnet Hill has and always will be a customer driven business,” said Betty Moody, Vice President of Customer Satisfaction at Garnet Hill. “We thrive on customer feedback and do everything we can to turn our customers into brand advocates. Their opinions are our most powerful marketing – especially around the holiday when gift-buyers rely on the experiences of people who have used our products.”

Garnet Hill Holiday Innovations with Bazaarvoice
With a strong history in catalogs, Garnet Hill knows how to create the copy and images that grab customers’ attention and create desire. This holiday, Garnet Hill is combining its incredible merchandising expertise with authentic customer opinions, experiences, and comments to create Voice of the Customer marketing messages that get real attention and stand out from the pack in every channel:
• Garnet Hill has reworked its popular interactive Give Guides around the customer voice, using product reviews to help guide merchandisers in selecting the right products to feature in each category. Shoppers can simply click through the interactive Guide, promoted through both email and the retailer’s Facebook page, for customer feedback that helps them find the right present for the people on their holiday lists.
• Garnet Hill is also enhancing its Facebook page with a totally new holiday product category within its Facebook Store, created around its top contributor, who has posted nearly 100 reviews to date. Garnet Hill also posts customer content to Twitter and Facebook, and introduced a Facebook photo album that showcases some of their top-rated gift ideas.
• Product feedback along with the contributor’s location is included in the company catalog as well as top-rated gift emails that go out to the entire Garnet Hill list – and is incorporated in several other holiday promotions and deal notices.
• Nearly every category on the site – from Bedding & Home to Children’s apparel – has its own top-rated section that is constantly refreshed with cool products rated 4.5 stars or higher.

Turning Data Into Doing – Through the New Year and All Year Long
Garnet Hill is also using social data, collected through Bazaarvoice, to proactively surface customer insights to improve its products and its business. Information on low-rated products is communicated across the organization, and the customer service team is tasked with reaching out to customers who provide low ratings in order to understand their concerns and reinforce the retailer’s commitment to quality. Reviews also provide Garnet Hill with an early warning system for product and marketing copy flaws, allowing the company to resolve issues quickly and continuing its long history of building the Garnet Hill brand around customer feedback.

“Garnet Hill is known for its tremendous customer-centricity, and Bazaarvoice is helping the company keep this brand promise in the face of changing consumer expectations,” said Erin Nelson, CMO of Bazaarvoice. “Its approach to marketing and merchandising – and their embrace of social data – offers important lessons for any brand that wants to stand out and compete in the new marketplace. Garnet Hill shows where retail is headed and the tremendous opportunities for new approaches in 2012.”

Additional Resources
• Bazaarvoice data study on Holiday 2011 impression of user-generated content and mobile shopping can be found here
• Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com
• Follow @GarnetHill on Twitter or visit www.facebook.com/GarnetHill and www.garnethill.com

About Garnet Hill
Renowned for superior quality, fine fibers and original design, Garnet Hill has provided distinctive merchandise and services of the highest caliber for over 30 years. The company began as an importer of English flannel sheets and has grown into a distinguished brand and multichannel marketer, offering unique bedding, home furnishings, sleepwear, shoes, women’s apparel and children’s clothing online and in its catalogs. Garnet Hill searches the world for exceptional items and inspiration for its extensive line of exclusive products. For more information, visit garnethill.com.

Bazaarvoice Names Kumar Srinivasan Chief Technology Officer

mwilson — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Monday, November 28, 2011

Amazon.com, Lockerz.com veteran brings breadth of innovation and technology expertise to Bazaarvoice executive leadership team

Bazaarvoice today announced that it has appointed Kumar Srinivasan as Chief Technology Officer. Srinivasan most recently served in executive roles at Amazon.com and youth-targeted social commerce upstart Lockerz.com, and he brings more than 16 years of experience building world-class businesses and engineering organizations. In his new role at Bazaarvoice, he will set the strategic technology vision for new products and services. He will also lead the company’s global engineering, operations, and IT organizations.

“Over the past six years, we have developed a powerful, global technology platform that allows the biggest companies in the world to drive customer-centric action based on the voices of hundreds of millions of consumers every month,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Kumar is a phenomenal technologist and leader, and I look forward to working with him to continue to lead our industry in innovation and further optimize our global technology platform.”

Over the course of his career, Srinivasan has been at the forefront of bringing some of the most exciting advancements in online technologies to customers, including e-commerce payment systems, social media, and web services.

• As chief product and technology officer at Lockerz.com, he led the company’s overall product and technology vision, commercial software product development, and delivery.
• Srinivasan was previously vice president and general manager with Amazon.com where he directed, managed and coordinated the business development, execution and global operations of Amazon Payments Web Services, Merchant and Developer Solutions.
• He also has held technology leadership positions with leading consumer brands, including Travelocity.com, Drugstore.com, Blockbuster Inc. and Wal-Mart, Inc.

“Bazaarvoice offers a tremendous opportunity to innovate new ways of making people’s voices heard more clearly and directly to help companies quickly adapt and evolve around their customers,” said Srinivasan. “I very much look forward to working with the executive leadership and my team to address some of the most exciting and invigorating technical issues today – at a global scale.”

Bazaarvoice: Technology Innovation & Leadership
Srinivasan is immediately responsible for continuing to innovate Bazaarvoice’s architecture that includes data centers, cloud computing and network management; a secure centralized source control management system; and proprietary data analytics. Key elements include:

• Scalable Infrastructure: Bazaarvoice operates at a scale that routinely delivers more than 260 million content impressions per day. The company’s infrastructure utilizes multiple hosted data centers and is designed for high availability and fault tolerance. The infrastructure has the ability to handle sudden bursts of activity for users with high levels of performance and reliability.
• Cloud Computing Innovation: Bazaarvoice has developed an architecture that works effectively in a flexible cloud environment that has a high degree of automated elasticity.
• Social Data Asset: The content Bazaarvoice captures provides a rich source of data that can be used to deliver relevant information to clients and their customers in new, meaningful ways. The company constantly innovates around this data, and develops new products to engage, enlighten and inform brand’s users.
• Developer Platform: Bazaarvoice provides a robust development platform that empowers developers to build new applications that extend their content to the places and devices their customers use to engage with brands. From mobile to in-store, to integrating with CRM systems, Bazaarvoice provides API’s, feeds, partner integrations and documentation to make it easier for developers to innovate on the Bazaarvoice platform.

Additional Resources
• Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com
• For more information on available Engineering positions with Bazaarvoice, visit http://www.bazaarvoice.com/jobs/engineers

Bazaarvoice Named Top Austin Workplace for Second Year Running

mwilson — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:46:40 +0000

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Bazaarvoice honored for a corporate culture that drives performance

Bazaarvoice today announced that it has been recognized as a Top Workplace 2011 by the Austin American-Statesman for the second year in the row. Bazaarvoice was named #1 in the mid-sized category in 2010 and now leads the large business list alongside St. David’s Healthcare and Cirrus Logic, Inc.

“One of the most important traits about Bazaarvoice is the incredible culture we have all created together,” said Bazaarvoice founder and CEO Brett Hurt. “It is a tremendous honor to be recognized for our culture, one that I am proud to share with our employees, partners, and clients around the world.”

Bazaarvoice: A Focus on Culture
• Bazaarvoice’s corporate culture is defined by the following core values: passion, performance, innovation, openness, teamwork, respect and generosity.
• Bazaarvoice encourages participation in community building efforts through the employee-led Bazaarvoice Foundation. Recent highlights include: participation in the CowParade Austin -- the largest and most recognized public art event in the world – benefitting Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas; and a partnership with Breakthrough Austin, to support and provide guidance to the organization’s 7th grade glass, helping them become first-generation college graduates in 2021.
• Every year, the Bazaarvoice engineering team takes time out to focus on out-of-the-box projects; video from the resulting Bazaarvoice Science Fair 2011 can be found here.

Additional Comments on the News
• “Bazaarvoice is a long term, strategic partner who delivers the critical insights that keep us customer centric. In my eyes, this would not be possible without the culture and employees who strive to bring my team the very best every day. We’re excited for Bazaarvoice to be recognized for this award and add our congratulations.” – Steve Fuller, Chief Marketing Officer, L.L. Bean
•“Working at Bazaarvoice is as fun as it is challenging. The core values that we, as a company, have worked to develop help guide our actions and continue to drive results for clients.” - Andrew Chen, Senior Product Manager, Bazaarvoice

About the Austin American-Statesman Top Workplaces 2011
• In total, more than 143 companies participated in the Top Workplaces Program in three categories: small (50-99 employees), mid-sized (100-399) and large (400+).
• Rankings are based on real employee feedback about key workplace issues including company direction; management quality; opportunities for career advancement and training; workplace atmosphere and environment; employee compensation; and company communication.
• Information on program and methodology, as well as the full Top Workplaces 2011 list, is available here.

Travelocity Improves Hotel Shopping Experience By Connecting Travelers With User-Generated Content

mwilson — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Enabling Customers to Ask and Answer Questions, Poll Facebook Friends and Share Experiences Creates an Enhanced Shopping Experience

According to Travelocity data, three out of every four travelers say that they have unanswered questions on the hotels they are interested in after doing initial online research. To help answer these questions, Travelocity has added new features highlighting user-generated content that allows its customers to connect to Travelocity, its hotel partners and fellow travelers.

“Travelocity has always focused on helping our customers make the best informed decisions,” said Carl Sparks, President and CEO, Travelocity Global. “Our new tools such as Questions and Traveler Stories are just a few examples of how Travelocity is guiding our customers so they can have the best trip possible.”

Questions
Questions, the first-of-its-kind in the online travel agency space, is a social forum for consumers to quickly and easily get additional information on a hotel before and after they book their trip. It allows travelers to submit questions about a hotel they are interested in and receive feedback from a fellow traveler, a Travelocity community manager and/or the hotel itself.

While still being tested with hotel partners, so far approximately 13,000 questions have been submitted. The feature is available on all Travelocity hotel information pages under the “Questions” tab, with question and answer content growing as travelers participate in the dialog. Travelers can also visit http://www.travelocity.com/hotelanswers.

“Still Deciding?” Module
Travelocity knows it can be hard for travelers to make the decision of what to book. In the top right hand corner of the hotel page of any destination you can now find a module that will connect to Facebook and ask a question about a hotel.

Traveler Stories
Consumers go beyond the traditional traveler review and share experiences in a journal format with pictures and videos.

Review Upgrades
Travelocity is improving its descriptions of hotels across the board so that customers can more directly compare rooms and facilities at different hotels. This includes more photos and videos for travelers to browse through.

Each of these features will also be included on Travelocity’s Canadian site, www.travelocity.ca. In addition, the site has enhanced its customer review process, making it more interactive and helping consumers help each other with the ability to respond to reviews and share their thoughts with their own social networks. Since launching the updates, Travelocity has more than doubled the number of customer reviews.

To develop these enhancements and help consumers make more confident hotel booking decisions, Travelocity worked with Bazaarvoice, a company that enables brands to create, listen to, understand, and act on authentic customer conversations.

“Travelocity has always been, and continues to be, one of our most innovative clients,” said Erin Mulligan Nelson, Bazaarvoice CMO. “We are proud to work with a company that shows such commitment to building their business around the voice of their customers.”

About Travelocity Global
Travelocity® is committed to being the traveler’s champion – before, during and after the trip – and provides the most comprehensive and proactive guarantee in the industry (http://www.travelocity.com/guarantee). This customer-driven focus, backed by 24/7 live phone support, competitive prices and powerful shopping technology has made Travelocity one of the largest travel companies in the world. Travelocity also owns and operates: Travelocity Business® for corporate travel; igougo.com, a leading online travel community; lastminute.com, a leader in European online travel; and ZUJI, a leader in Asia-Pacific online travel. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation, a world leader in travel marketing and distribution.

The Buckle, Inc. Rolls Out Website Redesign

mwilson — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:03:21 +0000

Friday, November 11, 2011

The Buckle, Inc., (NYSE: BKE) has launched its first-phase site redesign of www.buckle.com. The site underwent enhancements in both aesthetics and functionality to continue delivering an enjoyable online shopping experience to its guests.

The newest feature on www.buckle.com is the Ratings & Reviews tool, implemented by Bazaarvoice, a company that enables brands to create, listen to, understand, and act on authentic customer conversations. This feature serves as a key business tool for listening to customer feedback, enabling Buckle to receive direct responses on its merchandise mix.

The newly-redesigned www.buckle.com also showcases increased screen real estate and resolution, offering larger product images throughout the site. The streamlined design offers the opportunity to integrate more image photography and style content, along with branding and promotional information.

“We are pleased to announce the deployment of this new and improved design,” stated Dennis Nelson, President and CEO of Buckle. “We’re always looking to improve the online experience for our guests on www.buckle.com.”

About The Buckle, Inc.
Offering a unique mix of high–quality, on–trend apparel, accessories, and footwear, Buckle caters to fashion–conscious young men and women. Known as a denim destination, each store carries a wide selection of fits, styles, and finishes from leading denim brands, including Rock Revival, Miss Me, Big Star, Silver, MEK, Affliction, and Buffalo; as well as the Company's exclusive brands BKE, BKE Boutique, Buckle Black, Reclaim and Daytrip. Headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska, Buckle currently operates 429 retail stores in 43 states. For more information visit, www.buckle.com.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Gives Guests The Chance To 'Say It Like It Is' With The Launch Of Online Ratings & Reviews

mwilson — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:13:15 +0000

Monday, October 24, 2011

Guests and SPG® Members can now post and read authentic hotel reviews on Starwood websites

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT) today announced a new place for travelers to get unbiased hotel ratings and reviews – its own websites. Recognizing that in the digital information age travelers research hotels differently, Starwood is one of the first major hotel companies to invite guests to contribute ratings and reviews directly on its hotel websites

In a recent survey, nearly 85% of Starwood Preferred Guest® members said they find value in consumer ratings and reviews on travel sites. Starwood is making it easier for consumers to find the information they crave with reviews displayed directly on the hotel page they are viewing. The open forum gives travelers a place to share and search for genuine hotel reviews – both the positive and the negative – so they can plan their ideal hotel stay. Taking authenticity a step further, Starwood is also making sure all comments are from guests who actually stayed at the hotel. Reviews are verified by a hotel reservation confirmation.

“Our goal is to provide everything a guest needs to select and book their best hotel experience and there’s no better place to offer this information than on our own websites,” said Chris Holdren, Senior Vice President, Starwood Preferred Guest. “Starwood’s new ratings and reviews platform provides a valuable new way for guests to learn from the experiences of fellow travelers.”

Starwood believes the key to building deeper relationships with its most loyal guests is through access to honest and transparent information. Guests can now post ratings and reviews based on a variety of criteria including: Overall Rating, Room Comfort, Staff Met My Needs, Room Cleanliness and SPG Recognition. Helping to create a more personalized experience, guests can also filter review content to see the information that is most relevant to them including: Star Rating, Purpose of Travel, Frequency of Travel, SPG Level, Above/Met Expectations and Below Expectations. Reviews can also be shared through social media channels, including both personal and property Facebook pages.

“With the launch of Ratings & Reviews, Starwood is showing a true commitment to embracing the authentic voice of their customers,” said Erin Mulligan Nelson, Bazaarvoice CMO. “We’re proud to work with them as they continue to lead the way for the travel industry.”

Starwood’s ratings and reviews are powered by Bazaarvoice.

About Starwood Preferred Guest
The SPG® program’s breakthrough policy of No Blackout Dates at the world’s most sought after collection of hotels, reinvented the hospitality loyalty program when it launched in 1999. By creating a program centered on its members, SPG has developed the most passionate and knowledgeable membership base in the hotel loyalty space. Through its use of new technologies and innovative channels such as SPG.com, SPG.com/stay connected, SPG.com/flights and others, SPG continues to innovate and lead the industry. By offering No Blackouts on standard rooms at over 1,000 hotels and resorts in nearly 100 countries, No Blackouts on hundreds of airlines, and once in a lifetime experiences available through SPG Moments at spg.com/moments, the program has proven to be a big draw for the world’s most frequent travelers, and a significant competitive advantage for Starwood. For more information about Starwood Preferred Guest please visit SPG.com.

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 1058 properties in 100 countries and territories with 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, and the recently launched Aloft®, and Element SM. The company boasts one of the industry’s leading loyalty programs, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), allowing members to earn and redeem points for room stays, room upgrades and flights, with no blackout dates. Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

Introducing Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence

mwilson — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 15:39:01 +0000

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Breakthrough new offering makes social insights actionable across the business

Bazaarvoice today unveiled Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence at the 4th annual Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit Europe. The new offering surfaces powerful insights from customer conversations to drive specific actions across the business. Now, for the first time ever, companies like 3M, Cabela’s and Argos are using Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence to tie customer sentiment to particular products and people to take rapid, strategic action across sales, marketing, customer service, merchandising and product teams.

Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence Overview
In an attempt to get closer to their customers, companies across the globe spend billions on market research and business intelligence solutions. Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence introduces a new approach: turn social data into product- and customer-specific insights that power strategic, customer-centric decisions in every part of the business.

The Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence offering features:
• Structured social data asset that connects customer sentiment to products – and then to customer segments and individual advocates.
• Reliable, on-demand information source that can be easily integrated with existing systems and processes, such as loyalty programs and marketing campaigns.
• Always-on analytics application to track products and sentiment worldwide.
• Cross-divisional deployment in days through SaaS technology and best practices support.

With Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence, companies can replace guesswork with precise, always-on insight about products, services, and customer segments in order to sell more of what’s working, improve what’s not, and engage the influencers who drive their business.

Product Insights: Know the Why Behind the Buy
Designed for business users, Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence enables companies to:
• Proactively surface sentiment tied to product and service categories through an easy-to-use visual interface driven by sophisticated algorithms and text analysis of structured and unstructured data.
• Access insights 24/7 through a centralized analytics application that continuously monitors products and services in real time.
• Leverage Bazaarvoice moderation services to identify what software can’t, including product flaws, product suggestions, marketing copy recommendations, and more.

People Insights: Identify and Engage Influencers & Advocates Across Products, Services, Segments
Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence pairs category and SKU-level product opinions with customer segments and individual advocates to allow users to:
• Identify top promoters and detractors through advocacy and influencer ratings, as well as Net Promoter Scores.
• Engage with influencers and create 24/7 focus groups to continually co-innovate and validate with customers, and drive highly targeted marketing.
• Integrate Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence data with internal business data and CRM systems to create a 360-degree view of customers.

Decision-grade Insights: Operationalize Insight Across the Business to Power Data-Driven Decision Making
Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence can be deployed across the enterprise to:
• Empower all business decision-makers to take strategic customer-centric action and monitor the impact.
• Match insights surfaced through Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence with organizational structure for clear ownership.
• Get up and running in days with minimal IT resources through the Customer Intelligence SaaS architecture and best practices support from Bazaarvoice Client Services.

Comments on the News
• “To succeed, companies must get to ground truth about how products are perceived by different customer segments. Now they finally can. For the first time in history, word of mouth is a structured, digitally archived medium that can be sliced, diced, integrated, and analyzed to deliver actionable insights that were never possible before. This is a tremendous opportunity, and it will change the way marketing and merchandising is done forever. I am very proud to announce Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence to propel all of us along the journey.” – Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice
• "Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence allows 3M to proactively surface the customer motivations that drive our online community engagements, product by product, segment by segment. It is a tremendous asset across multiple brands and market channels, and we are learning new ways to connect with our customers." – Raj Rao, Global Director of Digital Marketing & eCommerce at 3M
• “Bazaarvoice Customer Intelligence has already made a significant impact to our trading, marketing, manufacturing and social analytics teams. It’s proved to be a valuable and dynamic asset, and has helped us to easily identify new customer insights about our products. “ David Tarbuck, Programme & Operations Manager at Argos

Additional Resources
• Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com

Bazaarvoice Introduces New Innovations for Clients to Achieve More Value from Facebook

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:57:11 +0000

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Benefit Cosmetics, Travelocity, PETCO, and other clients use Bazaarvoice to tap social networks in new ways to drive clear results and measurable ROI

Bazaarvoice today announced a series of innovations that enable companies to continue to unlock the value of social networks for commerce. These new capabilities in the core areas of Sharing, Applications, and Personalization merge the leading edge of what is possible today with a proven path to clear results and measurable customer ROI.

“There is a tremendous amount of opportunity – and hype – in social right now,” said Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Our job is to make sure our clients get immediate access to the social innovations that drive their business forward by merging what is possible with what works best. We’re very pleased to introduce our latest capabilities that build on our relationship with Facebook to power real results in commerce.”

“Our goal at Travelocity is to provide our customers with the best possible experience, and we prioritize social as a means to that end,” said Simon Rodrigue, Vice President of Site Experience at Travelocity. “We count on Bazaarvoice to show us what is possible – and what will ultimately have a real impact on our business. The result is rapid innovation that drives our business forward and keeps our customers happy.”

Social Innovation: Sharing
Bazaarvoice is leveraging the improvements to the Facebook Open Graph API announced at F8 to extend its sharing capabilities. The new enhancements allow consumers to express themselves in fundamental new ways and share their experiences with their friends and social graph.

• Bazaarvoice clients can go beyond “Like” to identify new actions that are relevant to their customers and business and easily add a custom button that lets customers tell the world that they “Own”, “Wish for”, or “Gifted” a product; “Want” a service; or “Stayed” at a new hotel, etc.
• These pairings connect a person to an action (verb) to a product or service (noun), empowering consumers to say something new about who they are and what they’re doing, providing valuable insight for other customers in the purchase process.
• Actions can appear in a customer’s Facebook News Feed, Ticker, and Timeline to enable new levels of engagement and insight.

Social Innovation: New Bazaarvoice Applications for Facebook
Bazaarvoice debuted its first application with the launch of SocialConnect Ratings & Reviews in June 2010, and nearly 70 Bazaarvoice-built Facebook applications are live today. Now Bazaarvoice is launching two new Bazaarvoice Applications to help brands engage more fans on Facebook.

• With SocialConnect Ask & Answer and SocialConnect Stories, brands can now extend Bazaarvoice’s Ask & Answer and Stories functionality to their Facebook page to connect with consumers where they are spending an increasing amount of their time.
• Consumers can now share feedback about product and services, ask questions and get answers, and share their experiences – all without leaving Facebook.
• These new Bazaarvoice Applications are a powerful foundation for Facebook experiences that are customized to fit a brand’s identity, target audience and business goals. Now, within minutes, a brand can supercharge their Facebook presence with the Bazaarvoice application that is right for them – brand experiences, product reviews, Q&A, idea exchanges, advice and tips, and seasonal campaigns.

Social Innovation: Personalization
In tandem with the new applications and expanded sharing capabilities, Bazaarvoice is introducing new on-site modules that allow brands to use friends as a guide for commerce by personalizing the social interactions on their site.

• New “plug-and-play” modules leverage a customer’s Facebook identity and social graph to surface the right products, services, and user content across the site – not just on the product page.
• On-site experiences encourage consumers to interact with friends and “people like me” in a new way – for example, by discovering products and reviews, asking questions about a specific item, or seeing friends’ recent activity.
• Clients can now enhance their site with entire pages dedicated to social discussions, making an unprecedented link between community and commerce.

Continued Hurt, “It is important to realize that we are still only in the first chapter of this long-term journey with so much more social innovation to build – but only the innovation that we prove works best.”

Additional Resources
• Bazaarvoice will be sharing these innovations, including real-world successes and more, at next week’s sold-out Social Commerce Summit Europe, which also features a keynote from Facebook’s Gavin Sathianathan.
• A case study on Benefit Cosmetics success with Bazaarvoice Applications on Facebook, “Customer Content on Facebook Drives 1,000% Higher Click-Thru Rate for Buy Now Button” is here.
• A blog post entitled “What All CMO’s Should Know about the Future of Facebook Interactions” can be found here.
• Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com.

Bazaarvoice Debuts Quarterly Conversation Index

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:59:39 +0000

Thursday, September 22, 2011

New report provides analysis of the social consumer — who they are, what they want, and how they talk about products and services

Bazaarvoice today unveiled its new quarterly report, The Conversation Index. Bazaarvoice has served nearly 250 billon customer conversations, collecting massive amounts of social data for the world’s leading brands. Bazaarvoice clients benefit from access to real-time social data and insights that fuel customer powered decision-making across their business. The Conversation Index extracts key findings from this social data set to provide a deeper understanding of global consumer trends, as well as factors that influence user-generated content (UGC) language, sentiment, and adoption worldwide.

The Conversation Index: 30-Second Take-Aways
The Conversation Index combines product- and customer-specific intelligence to offer actionable insights into how brands can put their customers at the center of their business. The 14-page inaugural report, available here, aggregates more than 5 million product and customer data points from consumers in 210 countries around the world to provide a first-ever snapshot of major influences on UGC, ranging from macro-economic trends to customer demographics to country of origin.

Conversations Change in Volatile Economic Times
The way consumers talk about products changes during economic downturns, and the way companies market and describe their products should reflect these changes to resonate with consumers.
•Mentions of “Price” become more frequent as the Consumer Confidence Index drops. For example, the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) sank to its lowest point in February 2009, the same month “price” mentions hit a new high - 11.5% of all US reviews written that month explicitly mentioned price.
•Since July, 2007, conversations about price in UGC have risen as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) has fallen, and vice versa, reflecting a correlation of -.68 overall.
Poor Customer Service Destroys Product Sentiment
Product quality and interactions with brand representatives are inseparable in the minds of many consumers—poor customer service is the product sentiment killer.
•Across industries, 6% of reviews mentioned customer service in Q2. Overall, the average rating for these reviews was a staggering 91% lower than the general average rating.
•Financial services saw the highest portion of reviews that mention customer service (17%).

Positive Feedback Contains Constructive Criticism
Innovative product improvement ideas, as well as flaws, can be found just as readily in positive reviews as in negative reviews by searching for pivot language.
•For example, 75% of customers who “wish” a product was better in some way still rated the product four or five stars.
•87% of reviews that identified a product’s “only problem” also rated the product four or five stars.

The Friday Facebook Flood
Onsite and offsite consumer behavior is largely similar in some areas, but Facebook behavior is unique.
•Nearly a third (32%) of all reviews collected on Facebook in Q2 were submitted on Fridays. The remaining reviews were collected fairly evenly throughout the week. In contrast, Fridays accounted for only 11% of onsite review submissions – only Saturdays (9%) saw lower activity rates.
•Facebook reviewers are also more positive, with a 12% higher average sentiment for Facebook reviews over reviews not collected on the social network.

Females Fuel Word of Mouth
•Women dominate onsite social use, with women producing 60% of all UGC in Q2.
•Women were also more positive than men. The average rating for female-written reviews was 4.43 stars, as compared to the male average of 4.32 stars.
•Overall, consumers age 35-44 contributed the most UGC across Bazaarvoice clients this quarter. Collectively, consumers between 25 and 54 years old were the biggest content drivers, contributing 70% of all UGC.
•In consumer package goods (CPG), the vertical with the highest average sentiment (4.68, 11% above cross-industry average), women contributed a huge majority of UGC in Q2 (84%).

Comments on the News
•“Social data is the most powerful asset that companies can tap in order to become truly customer-centric enterprises. Brands that lead, capture, and analyze customer conversations develop a deeper understanding of what they must do to meet and exceed expectations – and how they can finally put the customer at the center of everything they do.” – Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice

•“UGC is insight-rich social data that enables analysis at every level of focus and all degrees of granularity. But these learnings are only as powerful as the actions they drive and the customer-centric choices they inform. The companies who can truly integrate their social insights across the business are the only ones who will fully capture the value of social data.” – Erin Nelson, CMO of Bazaarvoice

Additional Resources
•Download the full report: The Conversation Index [Q2 2011]
•Follow @Bazaarvoice on Twitter or visit www.bazaarvoice.com

Bazaarvoice, Inc. Files Registration Statement For Proposed Initial Public Offering

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:12:14 +0000

Friday, August 26, 2011

Bazaarvoice, Inc. announced today that it has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock. The shares will be offered by Bazaarvoice and certain of its stockholders.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC will serve as joint book runners for the proposed offering. Piper Jaffray & Co., Pacific Crest Securities LLC and BMO Capital Markets Corp. will act as co-managers.

Copies of the preliminary prospectus for the offering, when available, may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, by email at prospectus@morganstanley.com, or by phone at (866) 718-1649; or Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Attention Prospectus Department, Harborside Financial Center, 100 Plaza One, Jersey City, New Jersey, 07311-3988, by e-mail at prospectus.cpdg@db.com, or by phone at (800) 503-4611; or Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, One Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10010, by phone at (800) 221-1037, or by e-mail at newyork.prospectus@credit-suisse.com.

A registration statement related to these securities has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Bazaarvoice Investor Relations Contact:

Bazaarvoice Investor Relations
Seth Potter
ICR, Inc. on behalf of Bazaarvoice, Inc.
646-277-1230
seth.potter@icrinc.com

Media Contact:

Emily Brady
Brady PR on behalf of Bazaarvoice, Inc.
650-692-6107
emily@bradypr.com

Bazaarvoice and Google Extend Relationship to Enable +1 Button for Commerce Websites

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:13:36 +0000

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bazaarvoice allows clients to add the Google +1 button to their product pages

Bazaarvoice today announced that it has extended its strategic relationship with Google to help consumers and brands benefit from Google’s innovative +1 capabilities. Google and Bazaarvoice inked an industry-first partnership with SyndicateVoice™ for Search, which was launched at the 2010 Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit and brought product reviews to Google search and ads. Recently, SyndicateVoice™ for Search was extended to include Google Shopper for mobile access to reviews, including reading product reviews while in store. Bazaarvoice is teaming up with Google once again to help brands and consumers continue to use social content to find the products they need.

Through the relationship, Bazaarvoice can now implement the Google +1 button for its global client base, empowering consumers to recommend millions of products that they love – right from product pages. These recommendations from consumers, or +1’s, can help friends and contacts find the right product more effectively on Google search. By implementing +1 buttons, Bazaarvoice clients gain important new social insights and a way to drive new marketing value and customer acquisition. Golfsmith and PETCO will be among the first clients to integrate the +1 button through the Bazaarvoice platform.

“We’re pleased to offer the +1 button across our site as part of our integrated social strategy to drive as much value as possible for our customers and our business,” said Jamey Maki, Director of E-commerce and Online Experience at Golfsmith. “This new feature is yet another key step in our overall multi-channel social marketing and social commerce strategy.”

“The next evolution of social brings our friends and peers into every decision we make, and we’re excited to partner again with Google to allow consumers to interact with leading brands through search in ways never possible before,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “The world’s biggest brands turn to Bazaarvoice for the social data, analytics, and insight to make better business decisions. It is a sincere pleasure to continue to advance our relationship with Google to ensure that our clients are always on the cutting-edge of marketing and business in this new era of digital word of mouth.”

Integrating the Google +1 Button Through the Bazaarvoice Platform
Through the Bazaarvoice social platform, clients can implement Google’s +1 button to empower shoppers to recommend products and pages while they are viewing them. +1 recommendations appear on Google search, helping brands to stand out in this critical marketing channel with the content that matters to shoppers – word of mouth from their friends, contacts, and peers. These engagements may also increase search visibility and click-through rates, and deliver data and intelligence that help consumers and companies get smart in a way that was never possible before.

As of April 30, 2011, Bazaarvoice served eight of the 10 most valuable U.S. retail brands and was the #1 provider of customer reviews to the 2011 Internet Retailer 500, helping brands gain unparalleled insights into their customers. Bazaarvoice has served more than 200 billion impressions of authentic, customer-to-customer conversations worldwide.

Yell and Bazaarvoice Announce Strategic Partnership To Bring Enterprise Social Management to Small and Medium Businesses Across the Globe

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:14:43 +0000

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Yell, a leading solution provider with one of the largest directories of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, US, Spain and Latin America, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Bazaarvoice, a global leader in transforming customer conversations into long-term business value. Bazaarvoice powers social initiatives for leading brands around the world, enabling them to drive revenue growth and use the social web to gain unparalleled insights into customers.

This new strategic partnership is expected to bring Bazaarvoice services directly to Yell’s customer community of over 1.3 million SMEs – helping them truly put their customers at the centre of their business. The partnership also provides Bazaarvoice with access to SMEs across the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Latin America.

“Word-of-mouth has always been a cornerstone of SME marketing, and bringing authentic customer conversations online will play an important role in the future of small business,” said Mike Pocock, CEO of the Yell Group. “Bazaarvoice is a global leader in this space and our partnership is expected to make these services more readily available to small businesses around the world.”

Bazaarvoice solutions that are expected to be brought to SMEs via Yell include:

• Dynamic and relevant user-generated content for e-commerce sites to help customers make more confident purchase decisions
• Online conversations that allow business owners to efficiently converse and respond to customer feedback
• Analytics designed to help business owners derive powerful insights about consumer sentiment and behaviour in real time

“This is a tremendous opportunity for us to extend our reach globally to new clients of all sizes,” said Brant Barton, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Bazaarvoice. “We are excited to partner with Yell to bring the voice of the customer to businesses in local communities where merging online and offline customer experiences is important to SME growth.”

Bazaarvoice #1 Provider for Customer Reviews

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:15:51 +0000

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Bazaarvoice is the top choice for retailers who want to integrate social to put the customer at the center of their business

Bazaarvoice, a global leader in transforming customer conversations into long-term business value, today announced that Bazaarvoice stands alone as the #1 provider of customer reviews to the 500 largest retailers based on the number of online retailers that listed Bazaarvoice as their vendor for this category. According to the 2011 Internet Retailer 500 list, more retailers turn to Bazaarvoice (136) than any other solution to help them engage consumers everywhere they operate and gain powerful social insights that fuel ROI and innovation. Overall, Bazaarvoice serves more retailers on the IR 500 than all other hosted solutions combined (136 vs. 122) and counts five of the top 10 and 25 of the top 50 among its world-class client base.

“There has never been a more exciting time in the history of commerce, with social driving incredible changes for consumers and businesses alike,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “We’ve pledged to innovate around our clients and help them measure the value of social. I’m proud to say that we’ve kept that promise, and our growth and leadership is a reflection of this important commitment. The 2011 Internet Retailer 500 list is important recognition for our company as we continue to partner with our clients to build a long-term, sustainable business out of social.”

Since debuting its Ratings & Reviews solution in February 2006, Bazaarvoice has grown to power social initiatives for brands across the globe, proving that social is real and measurable for the world’s largest brands. Top companies like Dell, and Office Depot trust Bazaarvoice to consistently innovate ways to drive business transformation and create long-term value by using the social web to gain unparalleled insight into customers.

Bazaarvoice’s advancements over the past six years have empowered its clients to engage consumers through word of mouth across a broad network that includes Google, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as mobile, retail, and brand sites. In fact, if Bazaarvoice was a web site it would be one of the Top 10 most visited sites on the web, with more reach than Amazon and Groupon combined. These engagements deliver data and intelligence that fuels ROI and drives innovation -- helping companies get smart in a way that was never possible before.

Today, eight out of 10 of the most valuable U.S. retail brands, 10 out of 13 of the world’s best electronics brands, and five out of the Fortune 10 choose Bazaarvoice to drive their markets with social. Bazaarvoice operates in 26 languages in 68 regions, and has served more than 200 billion customer conversations worldwide.

About Internet Retailer 500
Published by Internet Retailer, the Top 500 Guide is the undisputed source of information on the 500 largest retail websites in the U.S and Canada. Now in its eighth year of publication, the Guide contains the latest competitive data on the leaders of web-based retailing, and lists their vendors in 25 different categories, including search engine marketing. Rankings are based on full-year online sales. Other data includes: past years' sales, growth rate, monthly visits, monthly unique visitors, conversion rates, average ticket, total SKUs, top executives, vendor providers of technology and services in 25 categories, web site performance, search marketing and e-mail marketing data, and more.

Bazaarvoice Extends Strategic Relationship with Facebook to Drive Value Across the Social Web

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:17:43 +0000

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Bazaarvoice announces certification as a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant and integrates Facebook Send for global client base

Bazaarvoice, a global leader in transforming customer conversations into long-term business value, today announced it has enhanced its strategic relationship with Facebook to rapidly bring new social innovations to its global client base and drive significant value for customers across the social web. Bazaarvoice currently leads the industry with pre-built integrations between Facebook and more than 400 brand sites. These include Bazaarvoice Reviews, Answers, and Stories on Facebook; on-site capabilities such as recommendations by friends; Facebook Like; and now the addition of Facebook Send, which allows consumers to selectively share website content (products, reviews, ratings, and more) with their Facebook friends, Facebook groups, or email contacts.

Bazaarvoice also announced that it has been selected as a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant based on its sophisticated understanding of Facebook’s social mechanics and technical possibilities. The two companies have a long-standing relationship and history of joint innovation dating back to 2007, and share many mutual clients like AT&T, Benefit Cosmetics, Golfsmith, Travelocity, and many others. As a Preferred Developer Consultant, Bazaarvoice will help ensure its clients continue to innovate at the speed of Facebook and maximize the impact of social on their business.

“The best brands in the world rely on Bazaarvoice to help them quickly and easily deploy the social capabilities that will make a difference in their business,” said Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Our clients depend on us to innovate at the speed of Facebook, and we rise to the challenge every day with new integrations, best practices, and certifications to ensure that our clients are always on the cutting-edge of social. Our designation as a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant and our rapid integration of Facebook Send speak volumes about our commitment to our clients – and about the power of the Bazaarvoice platform to drive immediate business value. We will continue to rapidly innovate alongside companies like Facebook to bring to our clients solutions that deliver real business value.”

“Bazaarvoice deeply understands our business, and I trust them to continually innovate in our best interest,” said Shawn Morton, Director of Mobile, Social, and Emerging Media at Nationwide Insurance. “This involves bringing us game-changing innovations, and vetting other capabilities to make sure that they are right for us. It saves us a tremendous amount of time and effort to know that we have a partner who can bring us the best ideas from across the industry and make them work for us.”

Bazaarvoice: Driving Value With Facebook Since 2007

Bazaarvoice has a long-term, strategic relationship with Facebook that dates to 2007 and has consistently introduced industry-first capabilities to help its clients best use the features offered by Facebook to drive significant value for customers everywhere across the social web. Highlights include:

• Industry-First Sharing: With the release of Bazaarvoice ShoutIt! in October 2007, Bazaarvoice debuted the ability for customers to share reviews directly to their Facebook stream in order to attract new customers and generate sales, while allowing shoppers to share opinions about products with friends and peers.

• Facebook Like: Bazaarvoice has now implemented Facebook Like and other Facebook integrations for more than 400 clients, including AT&T, Best Buy, Macy’s, Nationwide Insurance, and Zales. With Bazaarvoice, brands are able to integrate key social channels like Facebook and Twitter into a broader marketing strategy that engages customers and ensures a consistent brand experiences everywhere they shop.

• SocialConnect™ Launch: Unveiled at the April 2011 Social Commerce Summit, SocialConnect allows companies to easily merge a consumer’s social graph with the Bazaarvoice product suite to provide a powerful social shopping experience across branded websites and social networks.

• Bazaarvoice Platform Extensions: By extending the Bazaarvoice Platform, leading brands worldwide have created innovative social applications that weave customer conversations into mobile initiatives, online and offline advertising campaigns, in-store merchandising, and more.

• U.S. Social Commerce Summit Keynote: Dan Rose, VP of Business Development at Facebook, most recently took the stage at the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit to talk about how Bazaarvoice is extending the Facebook platform to make it easier to filter products by friends. His keynote was among the top-rated presentations of the Summit and is available here.

• Award-Winning Facebook Implementation: Bazaarvoice client Benefit Cosmetics won the 2011 Shorty Award for Best use of Twitter or Facebook for E-commerce. Benefit deployed Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews on its Facebook page, allowing fans to share their product reviews with Facebook friends and fellow Benefit Cosmetics fans. They also placed the reviews directly in the product page on Benefit Cosmetics’ website. Anyone who reads Benefit reviews on Facebook can click on the “Buy Now” button for a product, which goes directly to the product page on Benefit’s site. Benefit Cosmetics saw a 10‐times‐higher click‐through rate for the “Buy Now” button on Facebook than the average online ad.

Bazaarvoice Named #1 Best Place to Work by Austin Business Journal in Large Business Category

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:28:56 +0000

Monday, May 23, 2011

Bazaarvoice is the only company that has been recognized as the #1 best place to work in every size category: small, medium, and large

Bazaarvoice, a global leader in transforming customer conversations into long-term business value, today announced that it has been named the 2011 Best Place to Work in the Large Business category by the Austin Business Journal. The award, featured here, follows the Business Journals’ recognition of Bazaarvoice as a Best Place to Work in the medium business category (2008 and 2009) and small business category (2007). Bazaarvoice is the only company to sweep all categories in the history of the awards, and this year’s honor rewards the company for successfully scaling its phenomenal corporate culture during a time of exponential company growth.

Bazaarvoice also won the #1 Best Place to Work in the inaugural Austin American-Statesman competition in 2010. Both the Austin Business Journal and the Austin American-Statesman use an external firm to confidentially survey Bazaarvoice employees, and their methodologies are different. This is a testament to the high employee satisfaction and the Bazaarvoice culture. To win #1 in both newspapers is a great honor.

“Bazaarvoice’s success is driven by the amazing people that make up our business, including our employees, customers, advisors, Board, and partners,” said Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Our culture has defined our company, and our performance, since we were a tiny start-up and it remains our single largest advantage as a global organization. It is a tremendous honor to be recognized as a Best Place to Work at each stage of our growth, and I am pleased to share the award with everyone who makes Bazaarvoice an exceptional company.”

Culture Drives Business Value – From Start-Up to Global Enterprise
Bazaarvoice means “voice of the open marketplace”, and this defines the company’s culture and business. Since its inception in 2005, Bazaarvoice has purposefully created and nourished a corporate culture that is inspired by its customers and emphasizes innovation, excellence, and openness in all areas. Bazaarvoice’s culture has been embraced by employees and customers across the globe, and has helped drive the company’s rapid growth to a global market leader serving nearly 1,200 brands in 67 countries.

As part of this commitment, Bazaarvoice has pioneered many innovative practices to ensure that this culture translates into long-term business value, including in-depth candidate presentations, a three-day scavenger hunt for all new employees, an upward feedback program for managers in quarterly performance reports, and an unrestricted vacation policy based on trust. Employees participate in activities and fundraisers organized by the employee-led Bazaarvoice Foundation that allow the company and employees to give back to the Austin community, and take advantage of opportunities such as an all-company art show to share all their passions and talents with the community.

“Working at Bazaarvoice is like nothing else I’ve experienced in my career,” said Zach Hotchkiss, a Global Account Executive that joined Bazaarvoice five years ago. “We are building a movement to change the way that companies operate and consumers shop – hand-in-hand with the biggest and best companies in the world. It is an unbelievable journey, and an incredibly exciting place to spend my days.”

Bazaarvoice is currently hiring across departments with multiple open positions in Product Management and Engineering. A complete list of open positions can be found here.

About The Best Places to Work Awards
The Best Places to Work honors are awarded annually by the Austin Business Journal to top companies in three categories: small, medium, and large business. The awards are based on confidential feedback from employees in the following categories: team effectiveness, retention risk, alignment with goals, trust with co-workers, individual contribution, manager effectiveness, trust in senior leaders, feeling valued, work engagement, and people practice. For more information, please visit http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/.

Texas Hospital Pioneers Online Review System to Gather Patient Insight

admin — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:30:02 +0000

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Hill Country Memorial Hospital elevates patient experience through accountability, transparency

You have rated your vacation online, maybe even ranted about a faulty blender or poor customer service somewhere. But have you ever critiqued your hospital stay? Located in Central Texas, Hill Country Memorial (HCM) is the first hospital in the country to integrate online rating and review tools used by Fortune 50 businesses and leading Internet retailers to improve the customer experience, but the customers are the patients of Hill Country Memorial and the experience is quality health care.

You have rated your vacation online, maybe even ranted about a faulty blender or poor customer service somewhere. But have you ever critiqued your hospital stay?

Located in Central Texas, Hill Country Memorial (HCM) is the first hospital in the country to integrate online rating and review tools used by Fortune 50 businesses and leading Internet retailers to improve the customer experience, but the customers are the patients of Hill Country Memorial and the experience is quality health care.

"Engaging patients online about our services and their time at Hill Country Memorial reflects our commitment to transform general care into a remarkable patient experience," said CEO Michael R. Williams, MD, MBA. "We are proactively seeking opportunities that deliver additional value to our patients, and gathering direct feedback is a crucial part of how we improve. Everyone wants to know what health care will look like in the future. We believe it revolves around giving our patients a voice that keeps us both accountable and focused on improvement."

Seeking to redefine traditional expectations and inspire a new way of thinking about healthcare, Hill Country Memorial implemented ratings and reviews to promote greater transparency into and direct feedback to improve the patient experience.

“I applaud Hill Country Memorial’s commitment to ensuring quality patient care,” said U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Hill Country Memorial in the past, and I am always interested in seeing the results of local ideas like this, generated and implemented by the men and women on the front lines of the health care field. I wish the staff at Hill Country Memorial success as they carry out this new initiative.”

Hill Country Memorial engaged Bazaarvoice, a worldwide leader in social marketing, to enable its online forum for patients, their family and friends. Bazaarvoice has powered more than 190 billion customer conversations in 67 countries on nearly 1,200 brand sites like Best Buy, Costco, Dell, P&G, and Panasonic.

"Hill Country Memorial is on the forefront of helping patients connect with each other to ensure a positive experience,” said Joe Dauskurdas, Vice President of Healthcare at Bazaarvoice. "We are very proud to partner with them as they set a new standard for transparency by encouraging open sharing among their patients to elevate the level of care provided.”

The site ratings are based on the diverse available services at the hospital and each service is rated on a five-point scale of staff friendliness, comfort of care and explanations from staff and physicians. Reviews are publicly available for reference on the site.

"As a former patient, I've seen the caring, dedication and professionalism of the Hill Country Memorial staff in action," said Texas House Representative Doug Miller, who recently added his review. "Knowing their commitment to serving patients and creating the best experience possible, it is both natural and inspiring to see Hill Country Memorial lead the nation in integrating patient feedback as part of ongoing efforts to provide remarkable care."

"People frequently talk with friends and family about their health care experiences and we want to be an active part of that conversation," continued Williams. "Our mission is remarkable health care for our family, friends and neighbors—Always. We take pride in integrating patient feedback throughout the caring process in a genuine way that reflects our commitment to the patients and community we serve."

To view the ratings and reviews, visit www.hillcountrymemorial.org.

About Hill Country Memorial
Located in the heart of the Texas Hill Country with a reputation of delivering quality care to the eight county area it serves, Hill Country Memorial (HCM) is celebrating its 40th year as a rural, acute care hospital. Independent hospital auditor Press Ganey regularly reports HCM’s patient satisfaction ratings in the top 10 percent of United States hospitals and the most recent Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health care Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) placed Hill Country Memorial’s quality of care in the 92nd percentile of 3,798 hospitals nationwide. Hill Country Memorial's mission is remarkable health care for our family, friends and neighbors—Always! To learn more about Hill Country Memorial visit www.hillcountrymemorial.org.