Is it already a year?

It’s approaching a year for the CafePressVoice team. Wow! That means another CPV election around the corner. In case you haven’t seen the announcement, we’re taking nominations if you’re interested in running for a seat on CPV. You have until April 8, 2008. If you think you’re right for the job, please let us know why you should run!

This was the first year of CPV – a first with working with panel of Shopkeepers on projects, processes, and communication affecting Shopkeepers. Both CafePress and the CPV reps have learned a lot in the process. We’ll be taking our learnings to help shape the second year of the CPV program.

The rest of the Shopkeeper community may not realize what they do… but they have been a big help to both CafePress and the Community. Their job isn’t to simply pass along Shopkeeper feedback, though they do that. More importantly, they help provide insight from a Shopkeeper point of view how our projects, processes, and even communication can impact Shopkeepers. There have been changes based on their feedback.

The following are just a few recent examples on their contributions.

Rolled Apparel:
Word on the street was the tape was ugly, too durable (hard to remove), and sticky residue. This was brought to our attention and the CPV team pushed to get this “rolled” out. This feedback got the team to move up the launch of the paper band which was launched just last week. In addition, the rolling process was improved to help minimize wrinkles.

Image Positioning:
The CPV team brought to our attention that the image on some products were not centered. The team looked into this issue and found a possible reason why this could be occurring. A new process was implemented to address this issue.

Sticker Quality:
The feedback was the stickers' quality was less than satisfactory. The CafePress Quality Control team found that the new machines we just put in place did not print well on the sticker paper. We are now looking into thicker paper stock to improve the overall quality of stickers.

This is just an example of what CPV have provided to us and we got done. We still have other feedback on consideration… feedback such as search results/tagging, new merchandise, Shopkeeper tool, just to name a few… Stay tune on other exciting new things coming up.

Here’s a message from the Quality CPV team:

"It's really rewarding for the CPV Quality team to help CP fine tune their production processes. One of the things we decided to do is gather information on unusual quality issues that come up in the CP forums as well as email lists and the internet at large, and bring them to the attention of our CPV Team Leader, who then investigates the issues in detail with the Production Team in Kentucky. When we hear the reports of how they made changes to improve the production process based on our feedback, it's not only fascinating to hear all of the work that goes into creating all the different products, but very satisfying to know we've made such a difference."

CafePressVoice accomplishments to date...

It’s been 4 months since the CafePressVoice representatives took office, and each team has been busy working with their CafePressVoice Leaders on various projects.

Some of the projects are long term so there’s not much that can be shared yet, but we want to share a few of their successes to date. The CafePressVoice reps have provided numerous contributions and their help has been invaluable.

Their feedback led to the following changes...

 

There’s more the team is working on and we hope to share the results with everyone soon. We want to take this opportunity to thank the CPV teams for their hard work and dedication!

July Meeting highlights

Shop Management - CPV Leader Ian:
The reps have been busy thinking over the services and features every Shopkeeper would love to have for their own accounts - the result, a 5 page wish list!  You can bet your own ideas for services/features are reflected in this list - it's very thorough! Some of the ideas we were aware of, some are improvements on things.  We're now in the process of evaluating and prioritizing every item. While we can’t make any promises, we can already tell that some items are likely get prioritized higher based on this feedback.  Thank you Shop Management CPV Reps for taking the time and careful thought to compile this list! Rest easy Shopkeepers, you're well represented.


Merchandise - CPV Leader Cindy:
The merchandise reps have been diving into the ever-changing world of merchandise planning. Between phone calls and online chats the Reps have provided invaluable feedback on topics ranging from new product ideas to communication messaging to Shopkeepers. They also helped us with a last minute decision on Greeting Cards!  Many new ideas and products await this eager team, actually we're already gearing up for 2008; we're excited to share our ideas and hear their feedback!


Quality - CPV Leader Ajay:
Ajay and the Quality CPV reps have begun the journey into the world of Quality Control. We've been sharing some of the processes we have in place and insight into customer satisfaction scores, and the Reps have been providing insight into what questions are at the heart of the community.  While the teams are just ramping up it’s already evident that this relationship just may work!  As a matter of fact a few of the topics discussed may directly result in quality improvements in the coming months.  Once these changes have rolled out, we’ll share more details. For now, know that the Quality CPV reps have been hard at work, they've got your back!

Kicking it off

On May 19th, we had our official kick-off meeting at the CafePress headquarters to welcome our inaugural group of CafePressVoice representatives. It was a chance to meet the CPVoice Reps face-to-face and discuss matters specific to CafePress and the Community. Community Forum Moderators also made the trip out, and together everyone got to know one another and learn how we can work together to build a stronger Community.

Some of the things discussed during the pow-wow:

• Roles and expectations of CafePressVoice reps and Community Forum moderators.

  • CPV reps help represent the voice of the community and provide input, influence and enlightenment to CafePress. They are not decision makers or the go-between for Shopkeepers and CafePress.

  • Forum moderators help monitor the CafePress Community Forums and ensure forum guidelines are being followed so the forums are a friendly, supportive place for the Community. They also help encourage peer-to-peer support on the Community Forums.

• Background of CafePress and the Community - where we were, where we're at, and where we're headed.

• Breakout sessions with each team to get to know one another and the CPVoice leaders. (CafePress employees working in the each of the CPVoice areas.)

All in all, this kick-off meeting was an enlightening learning experience for the CPVoice Reps, Mods, and all of us at CafePress.

Check out the photos from the pow-wow...