Consumer Power – Dell’s Experience

An incredibly intersting story of how one man’s experience with a company has adversly affected that company in a LARGE way. Companies are slowly learning that consumer power is something that they will have to listen to and respond to.

To: Michael Dell….
CC: Michael George, chief marketing officer and vice president for the U.S. consumer business, Dell

Gentlemen,

Your customer satisfaction is plummeting, your marketshare is shrinking, and your stock price is deflating.

Let me give you some indication of why, from one consumer’s perspective. I won’t bore you with all the details of my saga of Dell hell; you can read all about it here and here. The bottom line is that a low-price coupon may have gotten me to buy a Dell, but your product was a lemon and your customer service was appalling.

Read the rest here.

The truth is that each customers negative experience might not have the size audience that Jeff Jarvis’ does, but that they still have an audience. For example, I average about 30-40 readers a day here on WhiteAfrican.com. Add to that the number of friends and family I talk to on a regular basis. If I’m pissed off enough to blog about it, I’m probably pissed off enough to tell everyone I know offline as well. Even if only 20% of the people I communicate with act, that’s probably 15-20 people who will walk away from the company I’m upset with.