eric tatro dot com

PC juggernaut Dell has recently received a lot of negative
attention based primarily on the postings of a single (albeit very well-read)
blogger, Jeff Jarvis, who had a very bad experience dealing with Dell’s
customer service department. Bloggers, many of whom had their own
less-than-satisfactory experiences with Dell’s customer service, began linking
to Jarvis’ post and posting their own horror stories. Soon the blogosphere was
abuzz with stories about what has been dubbed "Dell Hell."

It looks like Dell has learned from the experience, as the
company’s public relations department will now monitor blogs and forward
"complaints with personally identifiable information to the customer
service department so that representatives can contact dissatisfied consumers
directly."

The situation is amazing for several reasons. This is truly
another testament to the power one person can wield against a massive corporate
entity using only a blog to get things rolling. Second, it’s a wake-up call to
corporations, who will have to begin monitoring blogs to see what people are
saying about them, good as well as bad. While it’s true that companies are
forced to respond when a blogger has a negative experience with them, the
opposite is also true.

For example, when someone from the marketing department at
Unilever read a blogger’s post about how he couldn’t find his favorite
deodorant, Degree Sport, in stores, the marketing guy wrote him with
suggestions on where to find it and even offered to send him a free case. Not
only did Unilever just make a customer for life, it made me want to go out and
buy Degree Sport after reading about it. Imagine if Dell had responded in this
manner to Jeff Jarvis’s complaints.

The third aspect that struck me about the “Dell Hell” case
is the sheer speed such information travels. You’d think I’d be used to it by
now, but it still astounds me. Companies need to work FAST in situations like
this. A great example occurred when video surfaced of someone breaking open a
Kryptonite bicycle lock using only a Bic ink pen. The news spread like wildfire
over the Internet, but Kryptonite was slow to respond, only worsening the
company’s situation. In the end, they had to pay out millions of dollars to
replace the affected locks, and suffered a tarnished reputation as a result.

Companies are waking up to the fact that the “blogosphere”
is a real phenomenon, and bloggers have the potential to severely impact an
organization. Along these lines, PR pros will both act with and react to blogs,
using them as a communication tool while monitoring them for positive or
negative “buzz” about their organization.