Wake Up And Smell The Blog

While I've had no problem with my Dell Inspiron 8600 over the past two years I've had it, Jeff Jarvis entered Dell Hell a while ago which got so bad he had to write a letter to Dell Chief Marketing Officer Michael George to get attention. Jarvis recounts the trials and tribulations he went through to get Dell's customer service to come to his aide. They didn't and he wrote about it. People read about it. Lots of people but, apparently, not Dell. They have this hands-off approach to weblogs treating them as ignorable rantings of the few and the unimportant. Jarvis explains to Dell and to any marketer wondering about this whole blog thing why they should pay attention to blogs and how they should join the conversation about their company rather than attempt to control it with anachronistic, uninformed marketing logic. All marketing directors should read what Jeff has to say, pay very close attention to it and act accordingly. Lest, one day, you'll wake up and quietly, all your customers will have left your store.