Dell’s Blogosphere Woes

In 2005, blogger Jeff Jarvis wrote a series titled “Dell Hell” on his blog, BuzzMachine. Jarvis has years of experience in dealing with Dell computers, and one day he decided to share his misfortunate experiences with the world. On BuzzMachine, Jarivs ridiculed Dell over its inadequate customer service. Soon, the BuzzMachine was generating 5,000 hits per day, and Jarvis’ story began to unravel Dell’s image of positive customer service.

Since then, Dell has tried to rebuild its image by engaging in the blogosphere and communicating directly with its stakeholders. Dell maintains a corporate blog called Direct2Dell, which promotes on new Dell products, services and customers. Direct2Dell focuses on positive aspects of Dell’s image and brand. At the same time, Dell just launched a social networking site, called Your Blog. On Your Blog, customers can engage in discussions about technology and Dell. On the Ideastorm section of Your Blog, Dell promotes users to share their ideas about making Dell products better.

Despite its venture into two-way communication, Dell cannot overcome its customer service woes; however, this time, the blame lies entirely on Dell’s shoulders.

Look at this latest blunder, discovered only a few days ago by Jake Gordon. Dell released its new laptop, the Vostro 1310, with misaligned keys. The whole bottom row of letters is shifted one key to the right. The QWERTY keyboard has been the main keyboard in use for years; a sudden change in keyboard layout does not translate to happy consumers.

(Photo of faulty keyboard courtesy of Jake Gordon)

As expected, Dell is replacing all of the faulty laptops (and the manufacturing error affects every Vostro 1310 in Europe). However, the corporate Dell blog doesn’t even mention the error. A search in Direct2Dell for “Vostro 1310” returns one result, which promotes the laptop’s features. A similar search on Your Blog returns nothing.

So why did Dell engage in the blogosphere and then neglect its use for crises? Does Dell want information about its goof to reach consumers from third-parties? New owners of Vostro 1310s cannot even learn of the error from Dell’s blogs. Instead of managing the crisis itself, Dell is passing along its responsibilities to the blogosphere.

Unfortunately for Dell, the blogosphere has created thousands of potential writers like Jeff Jarvis.