Thursday, June 12, 2008

Dell's Blog Campaign Clicks In -- Even to this Blog

It took less than 2 days, but Dell found me, and posted a comment about my previous posting that referenced Dell.

I didn't really expect a comment from them since my article did not reference a problem with Dell (as Jeff Jarvis famously did a few years back) .

Here is some background from RichardAtDell:
- On average there are 4000 conversations online everyday about Dell. We do not respond to all of them...in some cases we drop by, listen and learn and go back with a stronger and better customer point of view inside our business every day.
- since we started our work the negative commentary about Dell has declined by 30% and positive commentary has increased;
-sharing of nearly 5000 "accepted customer solutions" has reduced costs
- the team can point to retained and new sales
-Ideastorm produced ideas that were not on the product roadmap which have generated increased sales for systems with Linux operating systems; continuing to offer XP; Product (Red) and other business improvements
- generally, more and more of customers are coming online, connecting and sharing information. There is a value to us in the direct relationship we have with our customers, given that it underpins our business model and is what we are all about at DELL.

Some very interesting points.

PS -- Can you even do a PS on a blog? -- RichardAtDell, I would love to spend a few minutes discussing lessons learned for a future article about blogging relations. Please let me know if that's possible.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Norman

My apologies for not getting back to you. Either my search or me missed you first go around, but I heard you this time.

First, while I dont recall seeing your earlier blog until today, its worth noting, as I have on several occassions, that we do not respond to every blog. There are on average 4000 blogs/conversations about us every day. Sometimes we drop by and "listen" and collect the information to look at changes we need to make to business and learn from what we hear. Other times we engage in dialogue or say thank you.

Its a pretty manual process so we miss sometimes. I guess I missed yours.

On b2b versus b2c, I will tell you my observation is that Business IT folks uses social media as much as consumers, maybe more so and so we find ourselves "engaging" on both fronts.

Dell's Ideastorm led to more computers with Linux Operating systems...this was not on the product roadmap at the time, was accomplished in several weeks and has generated strong incremental sales; the same is true for keeping XP available; action on what is called bloatware; addition of Product (RED) computers; as well as other business improvements.

On some other metrics there are various ways to look at this and even evolving new ones. If you watch an interview at Fast Company TV, Global Neighborhoods we talk about some of that.For example
-negative commentary about Dell has declined 30%.
-We have more than 1/2 million of sales generated through special coupon codes released on Twitter by Dell Outlet;
-members of the team can point to retained and new customer sales;
-sharing of "accepted solutions" among customers reduces costs;

One of the fundamentally important aspects to remember is that increasingly people are coming online to connect and share information. As that hapopens we want to be part of those conversation to build relationships, listen and learn and improve our business.

Hope that helps with the information you wondered about. Thanks for your patience.

Norman Birnbach said...

Yes, that's very interesting and helpful. Thanks, Richard.

Anonymous said...

Happy to chat any time. you can contact me at Richard underscore Binhammer at delldot com.

Unknown said...

Poor me. As just a plain old retail consumer, I have had no luck with my Dell experience. A crummy computer, five days too late for a standard return, 20-minute holds at Dell customer "service," transfers to the wrong technical support department, and just today, a bounceback from my dedicated executive support resolver who is out of the office with no access to e-mail and apparently no planned return date. So if you're reading this and can be of service (sans quotes), please please help me out. PO order 307024764.