Dell have a new blog. They’re making an commendable effort here to engage with their customers and start being a more transparent, human operation. They’re allowing people to publish positive and negative comments on a very public and visible platform and they’re listening to and learning from that feedback. They’ve even posted links to their own negative feedback.
But thats just not good enough for some people. Instead of giving DELL a chance to get off the ground, discover the ins and outs of this new venture and fine-tune their blog, there is a wave of negativity, cynicism and general dell-bashing going on. It’s creating a real bad smell.
Now, no company in the world is immune to bad PR and despite our best efforts, sometimes clients do slip through the cracks and recieve less than astounding service. You apply this to one of the biggest companies in the world and you’ve got a lot of very mixed experiences in their customer history. But often in customer care, it’s not what we do or the mistakes we make - it’s how we deal with those mistakes, admit we’re wrong and give the client some incentive to stick with you. In DELL’s case they’re listening to this feedback, encouraging dialogue and bravely stepping out into the blogosphere.
So whats the deal with bloggers and blogging? Whats all the neg-heading and why is there so much of it going on?
A friend in the industry described blogging as ‘the digital equivalent of complaining about the toilet seat being left up’. And with blogging turning into a very public toilet it’s not easy to see why blogs are getting a bad name. Too much negativity, too many unfounded complaints, too much competitor-bashing, too manyfingers pointed too hastily before facts are established.
It seems some people can’t wait for a chance to populate their own blog with something negative (and very public) about a company just so they can have a daily posting. Now i’ve no problem with complaining (believe me!) and blogs are a great place to highlight injustices wether corporate or ortherwise but i’m wondering…is the blogosphere just turning into a very large public toilet where nobody will want to go in a couple of years?
Do we need a etiquette for negative blogging? If we’ve a complaint, is it better to throw it our there, get it syndicated, let it spread like wildfire, permalink it, link-bait it and let it build.
Or do we build and follow an agreed procedure before we post on a very public, active pltaform…
Disclaimer: I’ve no connection with Dell and no experience of them at all apart from drolling over their amazing 2407 FPW monitors :O) I believe thie blog is a positive step and hope they learn loads from it.
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