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| The art of sorry |
November 8, 2007 |
How Dell used a blog to apologize to the world and turn around its customer support reputation
By Peter Wolchak
Jeff Jarvis was fed up. He bought a Dell PC in the summer of 2005 but quickly became unhappy with it. First, the computer overheated and malfunctioned. Second, despite the in-home service warranty he had purchased, Jarvis was told to send his PC in for repair. When it came back it still did not work properly.
The hardware problems were bad, but worse in Jarvis’ opinion was the indifferent and inefficient response he received from Dell’s customer service department.
This story would, until recently, have been simply one customer’s private frustration. But this is the Internet age and Jarvis is a blogger. He turned to his keyboard, aired his grievances and became an online celebrity. He wrote an open letter to Michael Dell in which he called the company’s support “appalling” and it turned out he was not alone: Jarvis was simply the most prominent voice in a chorus of disgruntled customers. The spiral of negative opinion caught the attention of Dell management. Faced with a PR problem the company took an unprecedented step: it apologized. Thoroughly and publicly. In mid 2006 it chose blogging as its main mea culpa avenue and Lionel Menchaca as its head blogger.
The Jarvis incident was a “catalyst” for Dell’s decision, said Menchaca, Dell’s digital media manager, but there were other incidents, including a gaming PC that was not shipping on time. “A lot of people were talking about this online and they weren’t getting clear information,” Menchaca said. “Seeing that kind of discussion, we started to blog about it and just said: ‘We’re sorry. We know a lot of you are upset and you have reasons to feel that way but here’s what we can tell you.’ They were still upset but now they knew what was happening. Then we started getting feedback saying ‘At least you guys are sharing information.’”
Dell’s online communication efforts have been held up by industry observers as a case study on how companies should use the Internet to manage customer relations.
Backbone: So the blog, today called Direct2Dell, was launched to address a PR problem?
Menchaca: Yes, but actually it was more than just a PR problem. We had fundamental problems with our business. In customer service, for example, we made some bad decisions and that was impacting our reputation. We had a very segmented approach that said ‘Oh, if you’re not this type of customer I am going to transfer you to another department’ and being repeatedly transferred was driving people nuts. So the problems included call transfer, outsourcing, lack of efficiency and not doing what we said we would do. All of that snowballed.
Backbone: So now when Dell makes an announcement or launches a product, do you see a spike in the blog traffic?
Menchaca: Yes, and in fact we are also seeing reporters coming to the site for news. So the blog becomes a much larger communication vehicle. As soon as we have any information, we blog about it. It’s how we keep people up to date on our retail strategy, our reseller programs, whatever, and people are clamouring for information. With typical PR-type communication, we would always be waiting for things to happen, but with the blog I can get this out right away.
Backbone: What percentage of your customers actually read the blog now?
Menchaca: It’s still a small percentage. We’ve been very successful in reaching the typical bloggers, the ones who use Technorati and things like that. Longer term, we need to look at how we integrate awareness of the blog into the purchase path. So when people purchase a Dell product, how do we say “Thank you for your business, and now we want to hear from you.” That’s a longer-term question.
Backbone: What about advice for other companies? What mistakes have you seen people make?
Menchaca: Number one is not to lie. That will come back to bite you and your credibility will be shot.
Backbone: But there must be a temptation to lie?
Menchaca: My approach has always been: I know there’s a lot of negativity out there, a lot of things that are being said, and we’re going to discuss that. If we don’t have an answer, we’re going to say that. If we screwed up, we’re going to apologize.
That openness has to be there or the whole thing doesn’t work, but that is also what scares a lot of companies. If you think you can launch these tools but still ignore a big sensitive issue, that doesn’t work. People will demand you talk about it and if you refuse to post negative comments then those people will simply bitch on their own blogs: I submitted a comment and Dell is not publishing it. So negative messages will come out.
Also, the company has to be willing to take action. It’s not enough to just air the dirty laundry; they then want you to do something.
Backbone: Dell’s other recent online initiative is IdeaStorm, a forum where you post ideas from Dell or from the public and then people vote. I understand Dell’s decision to offer Linux on consumer PCs came out of this forum.
Menchaca: That’s right. IdeaStorm is the Digg. com model, in which people vote and the best ideas float to the top. On the first day a user submitted the idea to pre-install Linux and it became the most popular idea that day and stayed number one for months. In fact, Linux has been the basis of four of the top five ideas. We posted a survey asking a few questions about Linux— like which distribution people preferred, whether it would be used for home or office use, things like that—and within nine days we had 100,000 responses. So it was clear Linux was strongly supported by the community.
We felt so strongly about that response that we started working on it and in about 60 days we were ready to go with a product.
Backbone: But the idea must have come up earlier within Dell.
Menchaca: Of course, but IdeaStorm was the galvanizing factor. We didn’t have to build case studies and statistics with an army of product marketing folks. Instead, the information was right there and that was very clear to everybody who looked at it. The blog proved to everyone that this was a valid idea.
Backbone: What does Dell’s experience demonstrate about how companies can build effective online communities?
Menchaca: Let me give you an example. It’s happened that a customer has posted an issue and I missed it for whatever reason, and that customer then writes back and says “This idiot Lionel Menchaca is nothing more than a corporate mouthpiece,” and then other people will stand up for me and say things like “Hey, he’s a busy guy, hang in there and he’ll be in touch.” It’s great to see people support me in that way, and I think it speaks to our approach.
It all goes back to: is the company going to do something with the information? If people bitch about something and then see Dell apologize for it and offer a fix, then this whole thing is worth their time. It means an individual can have some say in this multi-billion dollar corporation and that keeps people participating in the forum or the blog.
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