The Dell Hell Experience

After realizing that a negative opinion on a blog could have such an impact on their sales, Dell started to care and to consider getting a communication strategy to face media and internet crisis. Before this happened, as Michael Dell said, they did not care much about the power of blogs. He recognized they screw up and defined his company as a learning organization that also learns from mistakes. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2007/db20071017_277576.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_top+story
After this incident, Dell launched this policy of being in constant communication with their customer and they are trying to make people aware that they will have all kind of support, they already met with Jeff Jarvis with the objective to have him tell the people how they have been trying to solve their previous mistake. They are starting to launch a campaign called “The end of Dell Hell?”.
It is clear that it took too much time to Dell to take care of this matter, I believe that taking in consideration the speed of communication at this point, companies have to be aware about creating a brand position along with their customers and not only by themselves. A negative opinion can destroy every launch campaign of a company. Another learning we get off this crisis is that every company has to have a crisis strategy towards media communication. It is impossible to control and to decide what opinions are load on the net so it is important to have a fast reaction when this kind of situations arrive.
In my opinion Dell did not know how to react, it would have been important to publicly recognize this mistake and mishandle of the situation and explaining this specific situation, offering in that moment a cash return to all the unhappy customers plus a bonus. Like that they would have prevented this crisis to keep growing. On the contrary they chose to ignore for a while Jeff Jarvis blog and by the moment they tried to face the crisis it had already become a wild media issue, and still there weren´t Dell public statements.
Once there is a complaint in any business, there has to be a direct communication with the customer and if it necessarily it is important to make these communications publics so media knows the company is taking care. We have to be aware that any negative opinion or complaint is a potential threat and have to be addressed by the company, a company cannot afford to distinguished weather it is an important client or not. It is their responsibility to provide a good service to their customer.
The Dell Hell experience is such an important history fact that right now is been used as a precedent and as an argument in legal trials. The New York Prosecutor is using it as an argument to prove and press charges against for dishonesty by offering services they can´t provide. This could be an enormous precedent if Dell looses this lawsuit. http://www.nyagdell.com/