Dell & the Bloggers

Well, Dell has started one2one, a corporate blog, and response from the blogosphere has gone along predictable lines. Jarvis trashed it, Scoble told them how to improve it, Holtz was a voice of moderation and Nick Carr made his usual large sucking sounds in the presence of a corporate consulting prospect.

Personally, I think its a very good thing that Dell is blogging.  The fact that so far, it is pretty sucky, is almost irrelevant. And it isn't that we need another corporate blog, which is not true of the bar is set for mediocrity.

It's that Dell has taken a significant baby step in the direction of listening and respond.

Dell's problems are not that Jarvis and the rest of us have posted unkindly about them.  It's that, in order to win a price war, they sacrificed product reliability, then disassembled a once adequate support system to the point of shoddiness.

The anger so many of us felt toward Dell, was not the disintegration of the products we had purchased, it was that the company wasn't listening, was dismissing legitimate complaints and otherwise displaying a disdain for the problems of their customers.

I am not so concerned with what the authors of one2one have to say. That will inevitably get better over time.  I am more interested in what they hear and acknowledge.  People stop shouting when they think someone is listening.

Dell, I'm unlikely to ever go back to you.  I left you after being a customer for 15 years.  I found Lenovo where service and support continue to be superb. But I'm happy to see you at least try to listen and my advice is--really listen to what people are saying.

Then do something about it.

Welcome to the blogosphere. Seriously.

Comments

[Deborah]

Great points Shel. The real issue with Dell is not that they haven't been participating in the conversation, it's that they haven't been delivering a quality product and quality service.

As you share in your book, they need to listen, then tell us what they are doing about it. Perhaps giving them a pointer to your case study on Six Apart and how they avoided a customer backlash by posting about their strategy and the reasoning behind it would help Dell. If they listen to blogs and then share their plans for addressing consumer concerns through their own blog perhaps they can create more advocates and reduce the negative sentiment toward them in the market. They have their work cut out for them.

[Steve]

Dell's deteriorating customer service is not an anomaly, it's part of a pattern. Everything the company is doing is getting worse and worse. Ask anyone who has a Dell TV. I used to be a Dell devotee...I've purchased countless Dells for my company. Never again!!! To quote President Bush, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...uh...won't get fooled again."

[Mads Kristensen]

Actually, in my home country, Denmark, Dell has a very good reputation, high quality products and good service. The had some poor laptops some years ago, but they seem to have worked out the problems. My Dell workstation is a regular powerhouse that just works. I like Dell, but one2one is rather confusing in its communication. Let's just wait and see what happens.

[Owen Lystrup]

I'm willing to say the same for Apple.

This is completely non sequitur, but I'm going through a bunch of unnecessary crap with Apple right now.

They just don't seem to care that they are making crappy products now (aside from the iPod).

They even have a forum on their Web site and don't listen to it.

As for Dell, give them time. I see one of two things happening. Either this blogging thing does not work the way they were hoping and they abandon it. Or, they put more time and effort into it, listen to the feedback they've been getting and finally get it right.

It'll just take time.

[Doug Karr]

I also wrote about their "Clog" on my blog. You may appreciate my take on it. I don't think it's an issue with Dell as with Corporate Blogging in general:
http://www.douglaskarr.com/?p=103

Regards,
Doug