Dell's blog premiere met by tough crowd
It seems everyone has a story from "Dell Hell," a place you go to for technical support but leave pulling your hair out in extreme frustration.
Well, not only has Dell recognized the problem and invested $100 million to improve tech support operations, last week, days before a New York Times story was published about the company's image problems, it joined the blogosphere.
Dell's new corporate blog, "One2One," is meant to give customers an "accessible alternative to more formal, one-way channels of communication," according to the Dell site. It hosts commentaries with Dell experts on new products and industry developments.
Bloggers, who played a big role in spreading the word about customer service problems and a laptop that caught fire, have had mixed reactions to the new blog. Some say Dell should have done more at the launch to acknowledge troubles of the past. Others are more welcoming, and say it's too soon to judge.
Blog community response:
"Dell really failed to get the blog going the way that they could have. This was a golden opportunity for the company. They could use the blog to engage the community in a genuine conversation on the critical issues that have dogged them for years now as well as the good things they are doing. (Recent pictures of a Dell computer blowing up at a conference in Japan were recently the rage in the blogosphere and now the media.) However, they chose not to."
--Micro Persuasion
"Like every corporate blog it is looking for a voice and will probably take time to find one. It's a little corporatey--but then it's a corporate blog. The bloggerati just need to get over every blog coming out the gate reading like a conversation at the local pub and not rehashing the past trials and tribulations of bloggers. It takes time for a corporate blog to find its collective voice."
--Andy Lark's Blog
"...so far I'm impressed. Dell is quickly losing its uniqueness as an efficient online computer retailer as its primary product and distribution method rapidly approaches commodity status (and who wants to be a commodity?)."
--Open Source CU