Social Media Saga continues as Dell Corporation yearns for “Dell Swell”
Chronicling the Dell Social Media Saga
I’ve been watching this Dell story for quite a while, even been on a panel with blog expert Shel Israel, author of Naked Conversations discussing it.
[Dell has come so far, they’ve learned to listen, converse, and lower the corporate walls. While this saga is not over, this is becoming a classic case study of a corporation making a 180 degree turn using Web Tools]
Gone to Hell, Cursed, and Exploded
Dell’s taken a freaking beating in the past years due to social media bloggers. you can do a search on Dell Hell, and at one time, if you did a Google Search on the term “Dell Support” bloggers not happy with their support come up. (Today’s Google results show it’s still on the first results page)
Joining the Conversation, Cautiously, then with Gusto
Dell launched their One to One blog, which was met with mixed feedback. While some didn’t think they did an authentic job at joining the conversation, others supported them for the effort. A few weeks after the initial launch, Dell started to publically recognize their faults. At CES, I had the pleasure to hang with Michael Dell himself, (thanks to Lionel) where Dell said they were going to start embracing Social Media, watch the video yourself.
Turning it up with Customer Collaboration
Just a few days ago, I helped to announce IdeaStorm, the idea was for Dell to create a Customer Feedback/Collaboration web tools that will let customers and employees create products together. Marshall Kirkpatrick at Techcrunch, wasn’t sure if I was completely right that employees were fully onboard. Engadget cleverly modifies the tagline as they state that Dell Wants You to Make It Suck Less with Digg Clone.
Acknowledging the Voice of the People
Well it appears that Dell corporate (which I hope includes some employees) that they are on board and that they are taking IdeaStorm seriously. On this summary list, Dell demonstrates they are listening to what customers have been saying. A very strong meme is leaning towards open platforms (or none at all). It’s even moved it’s way up Digg, a popular user voting site. Not sure if the solution is worked out, as the costs may be even higher to get a wiped hardware machine.
Saga Timeline
Blindsided from ignorance
Learned how to listen
Built tools to join the conversation
Learned the right way to interact
Reached to community
Acknowledged customer requestsNext Step (and most important) For Dell:
This is the most important part, the final leg of this cyclical journey is to get Dell to give the products that the people ask for.
Document and Measure
It will be very interesting to see if there’s a reduction in Product Research costs from these tools. Could be a very insightful case study on Social Media ROI for corporations, I hope Dell shares this info with me. Keep at it Lionel Menchaca (the Community Manager), Michael Dell and the rest of the Dellions. By the way, if this whole concept is very new to you, I recommend you read the Cluetrain Manifesto.
Update March 2: The saga continues with IdeaStorm injures scores at Dell — “sounded like a freight train”. Apparently, Dell will not be building what the people asked for in IdeaStorm. Ars Technica speculates the many reasons why it doesn’t make sense for Dell. For what it’s worth, either way, the market knows what the market wants, and it’s documented, in addition for great buzz for Dell.
Update March 13th:
Dell has made an announcement that it plans to offer Linux to customers, the flavors will depend on how users answer the survey. I met with Lionel yesterday, and knew about this in advance. I was able to interview him for my video Web Strategy Show, he’ll be up soon.
Update March 29th:
After reviewing over 100,000 survey submissions, Dell is now offering it’s Linux flavored offerings. The company is listening.
Update April 3rd, 2007:
Lionel Menchaca visits in person with Jeff Jarvis, who first coined the business blogging case study “Dell Hell”. This community relations in real life was a success.
Update May 24th, 2007
Ubutu, a flavor of Linux is finally released as a product. Lionel uses video to tell his story.
Update June 16th 2007
The consumerist releases an ex-employees 22 tips on how to buy the best computer, although Dell demands a retraction. Jeff Jarvis sympathizes with Poor Dell, Lionel of Dell responds from the Dell one to one blog.
Update October 18, 2007
Dell’s continued push to reach to customers has paid off, relationships, communication and conversations are starting to be the very fabric of their company. Business Week runs this story, praising Dell for all that they have done. A few times people have told me they are tired of hearing about Dell as the case study of success, the problem is, few or no other companies have moved this far in such a short time. The deserve our applause.
25 Comments so far
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Asking for feedback isn’t that new of a concept…and it’s more trouble sometimes than it’s worth, and can be a legal minefield if they do decide to use someones idea. And the wisdom of the crowds, never is. And ideas are a dime a million, implementations, be where it’s all at.
They will get common sensical stuff that shoulda been done eons ago. — i.e. don’t make Mom and Dad from Iowa talk to the Indian tech support guy. Like duh. Plus you have to do a REAL sampling not just the in-the-know geekheads. I will bet Linux laptops makes it to the top, and stays on the top. Or stuff out of Dell’s control, like make a MacBook Pro. So all the ideas, come from one lumped segment, that if followed could be strategically fatal.
Really tho, they don’t need to reach out to customers, they need to reach the Enterprise. Nearly 80% of Dell is NOT to consumers, they could lose that whole segment, if they would make gains in Enterprise.
The real issue is the their over-reliance on the FAT model (Fabrication, Assembly and Test) when they no longer have a supply-chain advantage. Why bother with Dell, when you can get real R&D, with the same efficient supply chain? And then SOA and SaaS models finally coming into play. And Dell having trouble exporting the Dell Model outside of the US market, China being a big problem spot.
Economic factors are at play here, “Social Media” is more a feel-good tool.
Dell still doesn’t get it, it’s still too much in control of PR and not the individuals being empowered to fix problems.
While they did help me solve a problem recently, they did not bother to link to my post on the issue that praised the kind and swift action of the customer service rep that helped me out via calling me. When asked about it the rep stated that “blogging was a different department”. While he commented frequently, that is not empowering a conversation.
Additionally, instead of pointing to big well known blogs that have nothing to do with Dell, I’d love to see a blog roll of random people Dell has satisfied through excellent service. That would be relevant to me.
Chris
this is much more than feedback. They’re involving customers WITH engineering at the start of new products, more so in a collaborative way.
In previous comments you chided the idea that companies should bend over to the lone, loud blogger. With IdeaStorm, there’s weight given to the voting system, Dell can determine market mass, or at least movement of groups.
The other points you make, well, I can start to agree with some of those.
David
Dell’s been in a tough spot. Commodity products created by cheap production and even cheaper service can only last so long before they, well, literally blow up.
People like Lionel are reaching out to smaller bloggers, and you’re right, they have to.
Glad to hear your issue was resolved.
The business challenge with Feedback is often the shear volume. By leveraging a voting/digg model, you allow your users to arbitrage for you - this is american idol for businesses. I actually think this is a very good development. It needs to go further, but I compliment them on the good start. To me, this is all about insight capture:
My own take on this here:http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/02/19/online-discussions-insights-you-could-use/
Sean
Ahh but see, a “voting system” from a narrow representation, is more akin to mob rule. Digg and such are utopianish lofty ideas, that can be gamed. The minority, can be vocal, and outweigh the majority, via a “voting system”. And in a pure democracy, the majority, can easily outweigh the suppress the 49% minority.
Sooooo, if we want to really 1776 this, Have a Dell Congress of sorts, elected “officials”, sent to represent the needs of the customers, more a Republic if you will. Big customers can have their Senators of sorts, and the consumers can have their Representatives. Laugh, but in some form, I think this is a brilliant idea, Customer Congress, so you aren’t always having to petition the Monarchy for scraps, indirectly already done via shareholders, but would be more direct via customers.
I’m not laughing, there’s some merit, however in some ways Politics and Lobbying is already occurring. Isn’t ‘voting weight’ already determined by dollars spent?
[…] I’ve some other examples of some videos that were created on YouTube against Starbucks. Today, I find it interesting that Dave Winer is calling out some recent online activities. It’s disappointing to some that Dell is saying to Linux users: Not so fast. I was hoping they were on to something, the saga is still not over. […]
To be fair, if a company chose only 1 input method for gathering insight - the company will be wrong. If it is just a digg like voting model…they will be wrong. If it is just call center data…they will be wrong. If it is just focus groups…they will be wrong. Each method has its inherent limitations and selection biases. The point is that it provides another valuable input vehicle that can either give you new insight or validate other inputs in how you make consumer driven decisions. No one should be looking at these methods as a replacement strategy or cure for insight capture/market research…but as a smart way to augment what they hopefully do already.
sean
www.communitygrouptherapy.com
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http://direct2dell.com/one2one/default.aspx?p=3
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