Fairmount CA

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec 22, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
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 decor 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 Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice’s Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions have powered more
than 260 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 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.

SOURCE: Bazaarvoice

for Bazaarvoice
Emily Brady, 650-692-6107
emily@bradypr.com

Copyright Business Wire 2011

AS ENCOURAGED by the County Times Comment, I am trying to look rationally at the proposal regarding the Broadbridge Heath Leisure Centre (BHLC).

I would always expect HDC to look for economic opportunities to balance the books and ensure good leisure service provision at effective cost. I would certainly not criticise them for so doing.

The HDC West of Horsham LDF Masterplan (Principle 5 amp; Statement 12) adopted 31/10/2008, stated that any proposed development ‘should take full account of identified leisure requirements, including enhancement to the leisure centre facilities’, to cater for the inhabitants of an anticipated extra 2,000 homes.

Two scenarios were proposed for the future of the existing leisure centre. ‘(1) An extension and improvement of the leisure centre or (2) redevelopment and replacement of the leisure centre to the south of the existing premises’.

A dedicated 1Ha plot of land was proposed to meet either of these options.

Subsequently, more detailed plans formally approved on 3/10/2011 have maintained this principle and a 1Ha site is still designated for extension/relocation of the BHLC.

The residential development in this area by Countryside Properties does not impinge on this ‘reserved’ site.

HDC is now looking at the Broadbridge Heath Quadrant Plan and the BHLC site is apparently potentially very valuable to developers.

This is not at all surprising, given its location near to the Tesco superstore. It is to be expected that HDC should give consideration to selling/letting at a ‘premium’.

If this proved the ‘best’ option, the logical conclusion would therefore be to invest some of the proceeds (together with already secured Section 106 developer levies) in building a new BHLC, as previously envisaged, on the 1Ha of land already allocated immediately to the south.

So why is HDC reneging on its own plan, agreed and signed-off after extensive consultation? It is also clear that in 2008 HDC was well aware of the shortcomings of the BHLC buildings (and almost certainly the value of the site) as it proposed a local relocation option at that time.

Why, instead of getting a straight answer to the above question are we seeing: false alarm over the ‘suddenly discovered’ inadequacies of the BHLC buildings; inaccurate headlines about repair costs (report actually says one third of a million immediately and rest over five years); expensive consultant reports which conveniently seem to give HDC a ‘dubiously argued get out option’; lack of recognition of all the user categories at the BHLC; lack of consultation with representative bodies; lack of transparency and openness.

If the HDC West of Horsham Masterplan LDF commitment to such local services can be so comprehensively and retrospectively dispensed with, maybe HDC should reconsult on the whole development plan for this area?

Come on HDC, please fulfill your documented obligations and retain a leisure centre at Broadbridge Heath, even if it is BHLC Mk2!

After all, if the site is so valuable doesn’t it make funding a new BHLC easier and the much flaunted £1.5m repair cost totally irrelevant?

PAUL KORNYCKY

Cox Green, Rudgwick