Dell Hell

Now when you screw your customers, your customers can fight back and publish and organize. (Jeff Jarvis)

Jeff Jervis is a blogger, journalist, and university professor. Jeff wrote an insightful book “What would Google Do?” and regularly writes at his blog “Buzzmachine” about new media in the information age. In June 2005, Jeff decided to buy a notebook, which comes with a home repair service in order stop worrying about technology and focus on writing. The notebook was from the pioneer of direct sales over the Internet Dell. It broke on the very first day Jeff received it. Jeff thought that such things can happen and contacted Dell’s customer service. Unfortunately, technician, who came to his home, could not repair the notebook on the spot as the home repair service advertised. Moreover, Dell could not fix the notebook even in its repair centre. Also, Jeff’s repeated interaction with Dell’s customer service did not get him closer neither to the solution nor did make him happy.

Jeff decided to write about his experience at the blog. First reaction was hoarding comments from other unsatisfied Dell’s customers at his blog. When he wrote an open letter to Michael Dell, Jeff got cited at on line version of prestigious business journals like BusinessWeek and Financial Times. Eventually, Dell’s shares significantly dropped at the top of the negative publicity verge.

What is most surprising that Dell’s reaction to Jeff’s blogging was close to zero. Dell was sitting quietly watching as the situation unfolded. At one point, Dell even closed its general customer forum as if it was the only platform, where their unhappy customers could speak up. But, what should have Dell done? Here are some general advices.

1. Actively seek for customer complaints at the internet. Analyze them differentiating between isolated incidents and systemic problems.

2. If the forum allows company intervention, professionally answer on comment at the forums especially those negative ones e.g. by referring to own company technical support forums.

3. Act on complaints. Customer complaints represent best opportunity to turn complaining customers into active company promoters by providing excellent customer service.

4. Set up a company blog, ideally run by members of Dell’s management, where Dell could comment on recent development in a lighter manner than in official PR announcements. It would give Dell additional channel of communication, which could prove extremely useful in case of Jeff’s blog attacks.

5. Engage into social media. Create pages at Facebook and other major social sites and gather a fan base. These people could help Dell to counter attack Jeff’s blog posts by comments on their Facebook walls.

I believe that Dell learned its lesson as the Dell vs. Jeff Jarvis is taught at the business schools and today Dell actually has a Facebook page with more than 173,000 fans. However, did other companies learned from Dell?