For years we have put up with terrible customer service. Think about how many rude waiters, impolite sales people and clueless technicians you've come across over the years. It goes beyond rudeness and includes errors in service too. Today, however, the customer is large and in charge thanks to the Internet. Newsday covered this well over the weekend.
However, there's a new wrinkle - Flat Earth. In a flat world, service issues know no boundaries. No longer is a glitch - no matter how specialized - confined to just one corner of the world or a particular region. Thanks to the power of the Internet, citizen vigilantes take these global and overnight. And often they zero in on US companies.
Once again Dell is in the spotlight here with Processorgate - China's version of Dell Hell. In June Zhang Min bought a $1,000 notebook from Dell but it came with the wrong processor for "virtualization." He tuned into the net and found dozens of others in the same situation. Not long afterward he also found a lawyer who was ready to sue Dell, which is in the works.
Sam Flemming, a great marketing blogger I have come to know in China, is tracking the whole story. He has a timeline of the entire "processorgate" affair. Sam also notes how the customer issue jet-stream is moving from social media to the mainstream instead of in the other direction.
The ball once again is in Dell's court to address this issue on their blog, which has been renamed Direct2Dell. To their credit, Dell has come a long way since the launch of their blog and its early stumbles. They have addressed many of their issues in a forthright way. Dell also has been openly discussing their global supply chain.
I would love to see Dell pick up the baton on this issue and tackle it head on. Sure, there are legal issues present here so they will need to proceed carefully. However, this is another golden opportunity for Dell to use their blog to give their side of the story in a human voice.
Tags: china, dell, processorgate
