What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [5]
And so, that August, I shipped the machine back and believed my Dell odyssey had ended. In what I thought was the final act in my silicon opera, I blogged an open letter to Michael Dell offering sincere and, I believed, helpful advice about bloggers and customers, who are more often now one and the same.
Your customer satisfaction is plummeting, your market share is shrinking, and your stock price is deflating.
Let me give you some indication of why, from one consumer’s perspective…The bottom line is that a low-price coupon may have gotten me to buy a Dell, but your product was a lemon and your customer service was appalling….
I’m typing this on an Apple PowerBook. I also have bought two more Apples for our home.
But you didn’t just lose three PC sales and me as a customer.
Today, when you lose a customer, you don’t lose just that customer, you risk losing that customer’s friends. And thanks to the internet and blogs and consumer rate-and-review services, your customers have lots and lots of friends all around the world.
I told him about my fellow customers who’d chimed in with their complaints. I suggested he should have interns—better yet, vice presidents—reading what the world was saying about the company in the blogosphere. I also mentioned the big-time press, including BusinessWeek, that had picked up the story. Mocking Dell’s own commercials, Fast Company magazine turned customer complaint online into a verb: “You got Dell’d.”
But the tale I really loved, which I recounted in my open letter, came from Rick Segal, a blogging venture capitalist in Toronto who sat next to a couple of bank tellers in his office building’s food court and heard them discussing the saga. That is how easily things spread online. Segal blogged the scene:
Lady one: “I was going to buy a new Dell but did you hear about Jeff Jarvis and the absolute hell he is going through with them?” Lady two: “Yeah, I know, the IT guy told me that….”
Segal had his own advice for Dell. “The pay-attention part: Lots of people (Dell?) are making the assumption that ‘average people’ or ‘the masses’ don’t really see/read blogs so we take a little heat and move on. Big mistake.” My advice for Dell continued with four simple tips:
Read blogs. Go to Technorati, Icerocket, Google, Bloglines, Pubsub, [search engines for blogs] and search for Dell and read what they’re saying about you. Get it out of your head that these are “bloggers,” just strange beasts blathering. These are consumers, your marketplace, your customers—if you’re lucky. They are just people. You surely spend a fortune on consumer research, on surveys and focus groups and think tanks to find out what people are thinking. On blogs, they will tell you for free. All you have to do is read them. All you have to do is listen.
Talk with your consumers. One of your executives said you have a look-don’t-touch policy regarding blogs. How insulting that is: You ignore your consumers? You act as if we’re not here? How would you like it if you gave someone thousands of dollars and they ignored you? You’re not used to being treated that way. Neither are we. It’s just rude. These bloggers care enough to talk about your products and service and brands. The least you can do is engage them and join the conversation. You will learn more than any think tank can ever tell you about what the market thinks of your products. But go to the next step: Ask your consumers what they think you should do. You’ll end up with better products and you’ll do a better job selling them to more satisfied customers who can even help each other, if you’ll let them. It’s good business, gentlemen.
Blog. If Microsoft and Sun and even GM, fercapitalismsake, can have their smartest [executives] blogging, so why shouldn’t you? Or the better question: Why should you? Because it’s a fad? No. Because it will make you cool with your kids? No. Blog because it shows that you are