Billy

As I have expressed before; I am saddened by the lack of coverage that an “event” like this has attracted. It seems that most everyone takes aim at companies like Dell, criticizing them for not “listening” to their customers. And now that there finally is solid tangible proof that Dell really is not just talking about listening to customers, but are “putting their money where their mouth is”, the media excuses the lack of coverage with, “It isn’t what the readers want to hear about.”

No doubt, that if the media decided that they wanted to make it newsworthy they could, but that would require some guts and no doubt is too risky. I was able to get a large media outlet to cover the “bad and the ugly” of the XPS 700 launch, but try as I might, I cannot get the editors to comment on the “good.”

As the jobs continue to shift to Asia, and as China marches higher and higher on top of its 1.5 Trillion pile of American Dollars, maybe it is time to make “Doing the noble thing”, popular, before everyone in our culture considers it popular to buy foreign.

I lived in Taiwan for 12 years and service is everything. I had a ceiling fan installed by some mom and pop outfit in Tiachung. Two guys worked all day to get it installed and to see me satisfied. It cost me $20 U.S., yet somehow they managed to “see” profit! China didn’t just stumble into this world economy.

Now how do they correct that? Right now they look like they are in “damage control” mode. The long term problem that I see is that they now have a lot of Pissed off peeple out there that are not going to go running back with open arms.

The one company I would equate Dell to is Quark. They are making all the same mistakes that Quark made in the late 90’s early 00’s. Quark has attempted to right their ship and Dell is using many of the same tactics. In regard toi my comment above Dell should inquire with Quark about how easy it has been to regain their former customers after years of systemic, relentless poor service.

In Dell’s case its now IBM, HP and even Apple that are reaping the benefit of the angry masses, instead of Adobe in Quark case. The parallels are striking.

My wife and I teach inner city kids and many of them will not stand a chance of ever getting a large American Corporation to listen to them, let alone take care of them. Recently Chase Bank in error charged us for a late payment. After some 8 phone calls over a 2 month period my wife “thinks” they are going to fix it. She thinks! She hangs up the phone and says, “They don’t listen. They don’t care!”

Corporations are facing a crisis but don’t seem to see what the customers see. GM, Ford, and Chrysler are just 3 examples of companies in trouble, contributing to Michigan’s loss of 300,000 jobs in the past five years. My dad worked for Chevrolet for 37 years. He won their annual one recipient Award of Excellence back in the 60’s. After 30 years of driving nothing but Chevrolets, a brand new engine in my Monte Carlo mysteriously blew up, just 200 miles out of warranty. When I asked GM for assistance they said, “No, we don’t consider you a loyal customer. You didn’t get all of your oil changes at a GM dealer.” The crisis is real, yet it doesn’t appear to be forcing the change that Peter just suggested, “Sometimes a crisis is the only way to force change.” Or should I rephrase that, “…. a large change.”

Jim Collins, in “Good to Great” shares a similar insight. Collins writes, “In confronting the brutal facts, the good-to-great companies left themselves stronger and more resilient, not weaker and more dispirited. There is a sense of exhilaration that comes in facing head-on the hard truths and saying, “We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.””

Last summer Dell made an attempt to tempt the customers from the growing “enthusiast” market to ‘buy Dell’. Things didn’t go so well for the high-performance XPS 700 and a campaign was initiated by an already disgruntled customer on Dell’s very own Dell Community Forum. Nine months later apcmag.com writes, “If disastrous mishaps — such as with the XPS 700 — are avoided, making systems upgradeable by the user is actually a brilliant idea….In fact, it’s really the only way companies such as Dell might tempt the hardcore enthusiasts into buying a branded machine.”

What prompted the few smaller services such as apcmag.com, Enquirer.com, and others to report on Dell’s new found stroke of brilliance? Because one thing was for sure, no one was calling the first released XPS 700 a brilliant idea! In fact there were some 14,000 posts from upset customers seeking a better product.

John Cass, last month was here on Buzzmachine sharing words of advice for Dell, “Though hard to bear at the moment, Dell will benefit from responding to customer feedback, and in turn Dell customers will also benefit” I responded to John Cass’s statement to let him know that it was already happening yet I heard nothing.

I supplied Jeff Jarvis with an email, drawing attention to Dell’s stroke of genius, but it was overlooked. I sent an email to Robert Scoble and offered to fly to him and give a video interview, throwing a spot light on a theme that seems to pop up regularly around the blogging circuit; corporations need to utilize the internet, listen to their customers, and be honest! I haven’t heard back.

The one media outlet that I thought for sure would write a follow-up story to its September 21 article, “Dell Draws Flak From PC Fans On New Desktop” didn’t think it would attract the Wall Street Journal readers; not now with all of the on-going investigations. No story.

Here is what Neil Hand, VP of Worldwide Consumer Marketing, had to say to some 10,000 to 12,000 Dell XPS 700 customers on Lionel Menchaca’s Direct2Dell.com blog, “Our number one goal is to delight our customers with our products and services… we did not do that for some of our XPS 700 customers. On behalf of Dell, I want to apologize for that,” says Hand. “We want to show XPS 700 customers our appreciation for sticking with us throughout this process — we appreciate your business.”

I have spoken with hundreds of Dell customers, and many more non-Dell customers. They all agree, the words, “I apologize”, breaks down barriers and provide the foundation for a new and better corporation-customer relationship. If there isn’t more of this, then I fear that we run the risk of losing those days of corporate loyalty here in America.

Lionel then went on to outline what Dell is going to do for its high-end XPS customers. Technicians will be dispatched to XPS 700 customer’s locations world-wide and a brand new state-of-the-art, next-generation motherboard will be installed free of charge. At a possible $5-700 per customer, I am thinking that this isn’t some publicity stunt!

I am not sure what Tansley is referring to when he says, “The Dell story is possibly one of the best interactions between a company and its customers I’ve seen…..they’re willing to LISTEN and turns things around, if they can.”, but I sure do hope that what he is referring to has more substance to it then just Jeff Jarvis giving Dell a day in court with Lionel Menchaca. Dell would be foolish to not entertain Jeff, and to listen to his voice. That makes sense and it is in Dell’s best interest to do so. Good grief, some think that Dell stock tumbled because of the “pile on effect” that the Dell Hell blog caused.

But in the case of the XPS 700 customers, it was a relatively quiet ‘revolution’. Had Dell chosen to not travel the high road it most likely would have gone away with time. But instead Dell chose to LISTEN to Jeff Jarvis, Robert Scoble and others. They did exactly what was recommended. I admire what Jeff has done and even have his first direct2dell blog post on my hard drive!

Jeff Jarvis said:
Glad you’re here. But Scoble is right: The first step is to listen to the conversation about Dell that is already going on in blogs. You want constructive advice? Let me repeat… This is what I advised on my blog more than one year ago, on July 1, 2005: I said Dell needed to learn “…about how their customers now have a voice; about how their customers are a community — a community often in revolt; about how they could find out what their customers really think; about how they could fix their customers’ problems before they become revolts; about how they could become a better company with the help of their customers. If they’d only listen……Someone there should have the guts to deal head-on with the now-renowned customer service problem your company has. Be brave. Be direct. Be transparent. Blog about your hold time. About your customer service satisfaction ratings. About your return rate. About your reliability. Go out and quote the blogs that are writing about you every day and then answer their problems, concerns, and questions. Best yet: Ask your customers what we think you should be doing. That would get you respect. That would be a real conversation. If you want more advice about what a Dell blog could be and could accomplish, I know I’m one of many who’d be happy to oblige.
July 11, 2006 2:30 PM

Dell opened its doors to the inner chambers. Engineers LISTENED. Vice Presidents LISTENED. Media personel LISTENED- Lionel actually had his videographer put together a video and circulated it to Dell employees world-wide. He documented how Dell had failed to properly take care of a customer and shared what the customer was recommending for Dell to improve its customer care. And Michael Dell sat down in a private meeting, with no distractions, and no agenda, and LISTENED.

Not only did Dell allow the XPS 700 customers to ‘vent’ on Dell’s own Community Forum, but the moderator ‘stuck’ the topic to the very top for ALL to see. Customers were waiting for Dell to ‘lock it down’ but they didn’t. And then Lionel brought the topic right into plain and open view by dealing with the concerns of the customer on Dell’s newly found blog. Talk about being transparent!

Dell’s bold response to the ‘cries’ of the customer? You could hear the cheering through your flat screen Dell monitor when Dell “came through” for them, and announced the motherboard upgrade program. The “loyalty meter” nearly broke! John Cass was right. Dell will benefit and so will the customer. I just don’t know if he thought it would happen this fast!

And Tansley was right on as well. The Dell story is, “one of the best interactions between a company and its customers.” And only time will tell, but Cass may be prophetic when he says, “If Dell becomes the new gold standard for online customer service and technical customer support through blogging, its competitors have a lot to be concerned about..”

Don’t get me wrong. Jarvis, Scoble, Cass, WSJ and others are doing a great job. They have to wade through masses of information. But it is true that the big huge generic breakthroughs, where the general customer populations are benefactors of improved customer care, are simply not going to attract attention the way that Corporation failure does. It isn’t one of those “Pile-On Stories.” Of course it isn’t, because who is there to pile on! It’s a small population right now and it needs to be grown.

And that is why the radar must be left on after writing those glaring criticisms of Large Corporations, so that if and when they respond and actually heed the advice and DO something for the customer, it won’t be missed.

Think about it. The 8th richest man on the planet, after just resuming his duties as CEO of a $60 Billion monster corporation, listens to a teacher from Detroit, who owns only one Dell computer, and the result is that up to some 12,000 customers are going to receive a $500-$700 upgrade along with improved future customer care. And except for the few small outlets that printed a small article, no one was willing to share the story with a public that is pleading for Corporate America to LISTEN!

Is it any wonder that companies are afraid to take a risk and be honest, vulnerable, and apologetic and fix it to boot? And the sad part is; I really do think that a story like this one would give a few customers some hope that someone in these big, ugly, and selfish American Corporations really does care. It might be time for a Positive Pile-On!

I can’t say it enough: Thank You Michael Dell. Keep it up. Someone has to set a new trend, even if it takes some time until it becomes “The thing” to blog about. All of my life, driving foreign was like asking for my inheritance early! But this year I bought a Honda and my father shed a tear…..for GM.

I just followed your link over to their blog, and it turns out that much of their equipment is built with non-standard parts and cannot be upgraded. Thank heaven I didn’t buy their stuff. I wound up pretty much rebuilding my old machine with an up-to-date motherboard, processor, graphics card, and memory. When one component did not work, I sent it back to Tiger Direct, Micro Center, or NewEgg and got one that did. It was a pain in the neck, but if something else goes wrong, at least it can be fixed. And I don’t need to go through customer service to get it done.