QVC's Beth Rubino
The press release announcing the promotion cites Rubino’s role maintaining a “team-oriented and customer-centric workplace culture” throughout the company, even as it has entered new markets. In addition to her global responsibility for HR, Rubino oversees QVC’s corporate communications, community affairs and corporate social responsibility functions. In the statement announcing the promotion, QVC CEO Mike George said, “As the chief steward of our people, Beth ensures that QVC is a great place to work and a place where talented people come to build their careers.” QVC Inc. Press Release Nov. 12, 2011
QVC's Peter Gurney (courtesy of terrapinn.com)
Peter Gurney, QVC’s Director, Voice of the Customer (VoC), spoke to a group of customer experience specialists at a seminar in New York City yesterday, and explained how the retailer is using state-of-the-art, proprietary “text analytics” software to listen to — and eavesdrop on — what people are saying about them.
Gurney began by explaining that QVC construes the Voice of the Customer as anything customers say to them or about them — and, as we know, the QVC customer base tends to be a noisy lot! Text analytics captures feedback from internal sources (such as email, call center notes and surveys) plus external sources (including blogs and social media), then classifies or processes it to deliver aggregated, actionable insights about customers’ feelings, wants or needs.
The gathering-up or “scraping” of textual data can be narrow (say, top customers or active participants in QVC’s 48 web-based community forums) or wide (everyone on the web). And processing the data is complicated — involving the weighting or scoring of variables and the creation of an industry- or company-specific lexicon. In QVC’s case, for example, its text analytics software must know that “Today’s Special Value” is a neutral, technical term, not an expression of delight from customers (however much QVC merchants might wish it to be both at all times). An effective text analytics VoC effort enables companies to know what people are saying about them — not just to them — with a roughly 80% degree of accuracy. If a little Orwellian, that’s powerful stuff from a marketing standpoint. Continue reading »
QVC will broadcast a live Christmas music performance of Tim Janis on The Christmas Shoppe, Monday, Dec. 5th at 1:00pm EST. The pitch will be for a 3 CD package of Christmas Music (Item # F09608), featuring old favorites and original compositions in the “Janis-Style.” A preview of some of the arrangements is available at: www.TheHopeCafe.net/Open-Mic.html. QVC Press Release on Christian Newswire Dec. 2, 2011
Dec. 1, 2011Megan Bennett, a “Voice of the Customer Analyst” for QVC’s Fashion Division will speak at a Clarabridge Inc.- sponsored seminar on Wednesday, Dec. 7th from 8:30 -11 a.m. at the Bryant Park Hotel in New York. The educational seminar is titled Clarity in a Noisy World: Leveraging the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and Voice of the Employee (VoE) with Measurable ROI. Registration (available at this link) is free.
Clarabridge provides Global 1000 enterprises with sentiment and text analytics software that aids in customer experience management by collecting, classifying and analyzing qualitative data found in voice of the customer feedback channels. Clarabridge, Inc. Press Release Nov. 28, 2011
The New York Times ran a fascinating investigatory piece today on pork shanks, which are usually two-ounce pieces of pork cut from the fibula of a ham shank, and are sold by QVC as Paula Deen’s Smithfield 7 oz. BBQ Pork Wild Wings. Seems the fibula used to be left in hams back in the days of yore and functioned as a convenient handle for the Norman-Rockwell-like fella carving at the table. Nowadays boneless hams are all the rage, and so processors are using a special saw to cut the fibula into pieces, plump them up with a marinade of water, salt and “natural pork flavorings,” cook them for six to eight hours and then send them out to market. The process just described is the one employed at Appert’s Foodservice in St. Cloud, which handles about 40% of the processed ham shank business in the U.S., while QVC’s Paula Deen product is processed by Smithfield, but I think we can assume something similar. In any event, these tasty tid-bits can be dressed up all sorts of ways and (at sports bars and other casual dining establishments) go by names such as “squealers,” “French pork confit,” and “Eskimo Pies of pork on a stick.”
Kim Nelson, displaying one of her Daisy Cakes
Baking entrepreneur Kim Nelson has landed an eight-minute slot on QVC in which to sell her Daisy Cakes red velvet cake and spicy sweet carrot cake Wednesday during an “In the Kitchen with David” program, featuring host David Venable. The price of a cake: $49.86, including shipping and handling. Ms. Nelson said that her South Carolina-based business has been “…headed in a direction that I’ve only dreamed of,” according to the news item linked below. The catalyst for the sales surge isn’t hard to identify. She appeared on the ABC TV program “Shark Tank” in April, and convinced real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran to invest in her company. The Upstate Journal (SC) Nov. 27, 2011
