Remember "Dell Hell"? Jeff Jarvis, whose Buzz Machine blog should be regular reading for you, consigned Dell and their computers to that fate when he ran into really awful customer service from Dell. He wrote about it and set off a firestorm that apparently affected Dell's bottom line.
Dell, to its credit, appears to have learned something from the encounter: it has learned that customer service is critical to its success and also that it must carry on a conversation with its customers. That means not just talking to (or at) them but actually listening to them. And they have done so.
Take Jeff Jarvis's word for it. In an article a few days ago in Business Week, he says Dell has "leapt from worst to first." And apparently their satisfaction ratings have gone up even as the number of negative blog posts about Dell has gone down. And Dell has taken active steps to give consumers even more of a voice in the process, learning from them and even giving customers the ability to make product suggestions, alert Dell to problems, and help other customers fix the problems. That's true involvement. And, more and more, it's what doing business in a Web 2.0 world is all about.
(Hat tip: Sally Falkow)
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