Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Don't you ever get Dell'd! chapter 2

We discussed here how ignoring voice of customers (VOC), especially nowadays with blogs and other users generated media, could influence a company's stock value. I focused part of the discussion about Dell's experience in suffering negative hype from the blogosphere, a good example being Jeff Jarvis blog's Dell category. I ended suggesting to CEOs to appoint a Marketing 2.0 minded Chief VOC Officer as Marketing 2.0 is about co-marketing with our customers.
Well, here is chapter 2 fellow marketers. Dell launched its corporate blog a.k.a. Dell one2one, this very month. But as Steve Rubel points out, they missed the point again. The intent is right, the goal seems to be well oriented, but execution is not aligned. Starting a corporate blog without making sure your company can engage the customer community in a genuine, transparent and honest 2 way conversation with your brand will just get you Dell'd. Make sure you start to engage with the most outspoken and spoiled ones. Be open minded an candid and take action up front on a rising negative buzz -- not as the one started off this Dell laptop exploding in a Japan conference that was not cooled down (the buzz I mean, the laptop finally stopped burning).
By the way, I'm a Dell customer, and a happy one for now. So don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to complain about this brand to get a freebie, a refund or even a free computer (though if they want to send anything my way I might think about it twice ;-) ).
The moral of this story, at least for chapter 2, is that Michael Dell might be this Chief VOC officer I was describing. Dell needs Michael back as points BL Ochman, outlining as I did that Dell stock is headed south big time so it would be about time to enter Marketing 2.0 era. Stay tuned for Chapter 3...

2 comments:

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