The DellHell case

In June 2005, Dell Inc. received some complains from one client - Jeff Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis acquired a Dell Computer, and nothing could predict what happened. Jeff purchased a Dell manufactured laptop as well as the four year at home warranty. After the purchase, Jeff started to have major problem with his computer. Since his problems were not resolved by Dell he began to write a blog with the name Dell Hell. In this blog he reported almost daily the experience with Dell’s customer service. It was not long before the “Dell Hell” posts began to catch the attention of the mainstream media. As a result of the bad press and Dell Inc.’s continued silence on the issue, the computer industry giant’s sales and reputation began to plummet.

It was not until Jarvis wrote a letter directly to Michael George, Dell’ s Chief Marketing Officer and Vice President for US Consumer Business, that Jarvis received the long awaited reply.

However, the fires of Dell Hell had been stoked and continued to burn throughout the summer of 2005. Thousands of other unhappy Dell customers had either commented on Jarvis’ blogs or linked to it from their own and it was not long before the mainstream media took notice.

So what went wrong?

Despite the bad press and negative blogging, Dell remained quiet and silent. Why? Dell knew what was being said about them in the blogosphere, but it was company policy not reply publicly. In the eyes of Dell, blogging did not have much credibility. Don’t forget that at this time, blogging was in its beginning…

Final Resolution:

A year after the Dell Hell incident, Dell created two new corporate communication initiatives which incorporated social media technology

How to avoid the Hell?

The “Dell Hell” case teaches us the importance for the corporate approach to both social media and consumer relations. Dell learned from their experience with mainstream social media and took the proper measures to counter the effects of ‘Dell Hell’ and preventative care to avoid future incidents. Dell should have give more importance to the critics since they started in the Jarvis Blog.