I didn’t bookmark the sites; need to hunt for them.

No idea if Dell uses those techniques. But if they make the call experience good, and add value to positive results, then I’m all for it.

Richard, thanks for your comments here. I appreciate that you took the time to contribute.

How much is it worth to satisfy an unhappy customer? How far would you go to make that unhappy customer not just satisfied, but to make them an ambassador for you and your business? Here’s an example of a company…

Wow, didn’t expect someone from the mothership to pass by and join in!

It is good that you monitor blogs etc. closely. The various tools such as Technorati and Google Alerts make this ever easier.

Just going slightly off-topic, wouldn’t it be cool if similar tools existed in the offline world?

For example, if during a call to a call centre, technology could pick up customer frustration and automatically escalate the call rather than depend on the operator’s willingness/training to do this.

Let me say for the record, so to speak, we are not perfect. However, we are working hard to improve and listen and learn every day.

Pete, of course, there are inconsistincies across a huge global organization going through very large and significant market changes. Change takes time to completely take hold.

However, the focus on customers, conversations and nurturing relationships is what underpins our continual learning and improvements. That is crucial in my mind

Neville, I think it is fair to note that we do monitor blogs carefully and seek to work with anyone having issues with their Dell. Again, we are not perfect, nor are all of our monitoring tools but we try to reach anyone with a legitimate issue.

Surinder, what we seek to do is provide awesome tech support and do what is right given circumstances. When I say circumstances that is not “who” you are or for PR buzz. Searches will prove that there are many others who had systems replaced, parts fixed or repaired or situations that were also out of line and we could not help.

It is the customer specific circumstance and what is “right for the customer”. Neville detailed his case …and there is lots of reason in that case for the outcome, starting when he upgraded memory in good faith for vista on our system.

Thanks again for the feedback and perspectives shared here. We really appreciate hearing from each of you.

For example, look at the Dell customer service email form. Pretty functional and operational. Doesn’t look like the ad or design agency had any signoff or input into the look, feel, warmth, or invitingness of the interface. In short, it feels “under-marketed.” The Dell customer service blog, and IdeaStorm, by contrast, come at it differently…always begging for feedback and input, and using more friendly interfaces to “engage” us. This is what I call the “conversational divide.” If we’re really serious about customer service as the new marketing, we need to drive consistency across all consumer touchpoints. In the end, this will make the overture of better customer service more believable and credible. That said, I do agree Dell has taken important steps of late.

I haven’t used Dell so can’t really comment on them.

It’s funny how some major companies can get customer service so wrong. And others get it so right. I am not in the mood right now for negative feedback (other than to say that negative customer service really sticks). But I have been impressed by some excellent customer service I have received, recently, in particular, from Lastminute.com (cancellation), Waterstones (ordering large quanity of books) and Lloyds Bank.