Some lessons in life have to be learned the hard way. There's an old saying I've always liked that goes "if your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned." It's always better to learn from the mistakes of others, yet it always amazes me that companies make the same mistakes over and over, especially in the digital space. Big companies will still try and throw their weight around and it will most likely back fire. A recent example of this was a couple of months ago when the AACS Licensing Authority, reacted to an internet posting of the “Processing Key" that unlocks the every Blu-Ray and HD-DVD disk that has been published to date. The AACS sent out threats to those who managed websites, most notably Digg. There's a good story that The Times did on the incident: In Web Uproar, Antipiracy Code Spreads Wildly.
To make a point, here is the processing key: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88. Now, being someone that doesn't own anything Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, it's very unlikely I would have known this number exists if it weren't for the AACS poor practices. But, because they acted out of what they assumed to be "best practices", they added fuel to the fire and were burned badly. This incident drew national headlines and worst of all for the AACS, the key now widely available on the Internet. I would say this was quite the opposite of keeping things quiet.
Back to what I was orginally posting about, Dell has been an interesting case study over the last week. What's been going on is a former Dell sales manager wrote an article for the Consumerist blog: 22 Confessions Of A Former Dell Sales Manager. In the article, the author discussed tips and tricks to get the best deal out of Dell. Dell responded by sending the cosumerist a legal threat and demanded the story be taken down immediately. Of course, this backfired! The Consumerist replied by telling Dell that they had come by the story legally and voluntarily from a third party. They made it clear to Dell that they did not solicit any Dell employee's to breach contractual agreements in providing this information. Even worse, after those running the Consumerist became pissed off at Dell's demanding and overbearing requests, they posted the email trail on the Consumerist website. It's interesting to read the communication between the two organizations. I'd like to highlight the end of one email sent by Gaby at the Consumerist to the Dell counsel. She really put them in their place:
"In addition, as I am sure you must realise - and there is certainly a history of this with Dell already - consumers tend to react far better when a company responds collaboratively to criticism, than when they act heavy-handedly or dismissively. Removing this story would be far far more damaging to Dell, I assure you, than responding to it on the Dell blog or elsewhere, since in telling our readers that Dell shut down our reporting, we would unleash a chaos of fury and acres of criticism in the press. Forget any legal position you may want to take, meritorious or not, I am deadly serious when I say that I simply cannot recommend this as a course of action. I've seen it happen before and it is really not pretty and I have no doubt that you will regret it.
Of course, it is your decision whether you want to pursue this matter, but I advise you to talk to the team that had to deal with the falllout from the Jeff Jarvis affair before you decide to try and silence your critics. Work for the customer, not against them.
Best regards,
Gaby"
The original story has recieved almost 200,000 views in just 4 days and the follow up story with the emails has recieved close to 120,000 views. Now, things got really interesting when just last night, Dell posted an apology on their Direct2Dell blog. I'm thinking they were humbled to say the least. This is how they opened:
"Now's not the time to mince words, so let me just say it... we blew it."
In addition, what follows is a list of Dell's own confessions (23 for good measure) that highlight many of Dell's services as well as explanations in how to get the best deals on Dell Products.
Side Note: I happen to own a Dell laptop, I've been relatively satisfied with Dell's product, but a few years ago, I had a horrible experience with Dell's customer service when I sent in my computer to get fixed. As a result, I don't think I'll be purchasing a Dell for my next computer. I guess I'm just looking for a reason to post this, but it's one more example as to why companies have to deliver on the experiences they promise. This is a letter I wrote to Dell's customer service about my experience: Download Hi
Aside from my possible bias and the as-of-late overall criticism towards Dell, damage control efforts were smart and necessary following the consumerist incident. It's clear the animosity was growing. The story circulated rapidly through the blogosphere and was all over the front page of Digg. WiseBread even went as far as running a poll where 54% out of 1937 respondents said they would boycott Dell if they continued the takedown efforts. For Dell, it hurts to admit you were wrong, but being open and transparent about the incident is what had to be done. On the plus side, this shows that the company is paying attention to it's consumers. Of course, avoiding the entire situation would have been ideal, but for Dell, or any other company going through a similar ordeal, it's important to embrace the failure. With the current state of the internet, organizational mistakes will be made. It's a given! What's more important is what can be learned as a result of these mistakes and more importantly, how can we turn this mistake into an opportunity? Dell seized the opportunity by creating and executing the 23 confessions list. At the end of the day, consumers appreciate this creativity. Dell's efforts demonstrate engagement through conversing with what happened. They should realize they are better off having dealt with these kinds of crisis. Lesson learned: let's engage with our customers, not fight them.
