I have been away last week and this week was spent gradually working my way through the inbox and feeds and trying to catch up with what’s happened in the online and offline world.
Yesterday, I waded through Jeff Jarvis’s record of his experiences with a new Dell laptop that is on the way of becoming another case study in ‘customers-bite-back-online’ trend. The last post is:
One of the great lessons of the cluetrain era is that your customers
are your best customer support agents and marketers if only you allow
them … and respect them enough to listen to them. Dell does’t. As we
reported the other day, Dell shut its general customer forums… which should be the place for customers to help each other.
Today CNETnews.com writes about the the closure of the forums as Dell falls off the Cluetrain.
Considering its customer-friendly track record, Dell’s recent decision to shut down its Customer Care message boards is getting pilloried as an act of monumental stupidity, if not monumental arrogance…. Dell chose to shut down the forum rather than engage with its customers.
It refers to Jeff’s saga making a more general point that sums up my position on two-way communication for companies and blogs:
We’re still quite early into this Internet/blog revolution, and it’s
not yet clear how it will all end up. Still, it’s safe to predict that
any institution (including a news organization) that ignores the
conversation does so at its own peril.
Neville Hobson
on Jul 16th, 2005
@ 15:38 pm:
Adriana, there’s another case of customer service hell very close to home – Adrian Melrose and his Land Rover Discovery:
http://landrover.haveyoursay.com/
This customer is biting!
Adriana
on Jul 17th, 2005
@ 9:39 am:
Thank you! That’s what happenes when one goes on holiday… I miss some of the new interesting developments.
SMLXL
on Jul 19th, 2005
@ 18:34 pm:
Dell Hell
I read about Jeff Jarvis’s Dell Hell the other day… Adriana has blogged about it over at Media influencer Adriana says Yesterday, I waded through Jeff Jarvis’s record of his experiences with a new Dell laptop that is on the…
SMLXL
on Jul 19th, 2005
@ 18:35 pm:
Dell Hell
I read about Jeff Jarvis’s Dell Hell the other day… Adriana has blogged about it over at Media influencer Adriana says Yesterday, I waded through Jeff Jarvis’s record of his experiences with a new Dell laptop that is on the…
eric
on May 25th, 2008
@ 14:18 pm:
hi if anyone reads this i was on call with a tech support guy in bombay india the guy was extremely tech geek and after troubleshooting with him for 30 mins the issue was resolved it was really good experience ,then he recommended me to buy some memory upgrade i said i would buy it from a local store the tech was bit sad and from his tone i was getting the feeling that dell has now degraded to such an extent that they re making the tech support guy sell dell products….i brought the memories the tech was escalated it is a shame that dell is doing such things with some underpaid tech to sell their products …i am going to write about this to the senate trade committee and the house committee onforeign trade on how dell is using poor support guys to sell their products,i got a detailed email fromthe tech describing what they are made to do an support calls to sell goods and the target they need to meet
Land Rover Hell
on Dec 4th, 2008
@ 13:43 pm:
We have launched Land Rover Hell http://www.LandRoverHell.com as a result of the consistent problems that we have experienced with our Land Rover Discovery since its purchase, almost 3 years ago. Besides all the problems with the car, what has compounded matters is the bad service and general uninterested and unhelpful attitude of Land Rover Spain, and Land Rover head office in the U.K.
The car has been unbelievably unreliable, and on 2 occasions whilst travelling abroad we experienced major problems, resulting on both occasions having to leave the car behind and return in a small hire car, thus leaving the trailer we had taken with us, stranded there too. Consequently this has involved another round-trip of having to collect the trailer, all at our own cost, which on both occasions the mileage has been 975km for each trip, so it wasn’t cheap! We also feel that it should be bought to everybody’s attention that Land Rover do not want to honour their warranty obligations, and fabricate lies to avoid paying out for genuine repairs, (please read the article “Battery & Transmission” for further details).
We just feel that potential customers of Land Rover should be aware of the fact that the Land Rover Discovery is not a reliable car, and after the sale care is non existent and is particularly bad from Head Office. The supplying dealer was a nightmare, (no longer a main Land Rover dealer) However the current servicing dealer Autonautica in Benidorm has been fantastic and always very helpful, the roadside assistance have been terrific too, (invaluable on the Land Rover Discovery) but in the long run it is Head Office that hold the key to providing the long-term solution, and thus it is with them we have the problem.
Hopefully, this forum will enlighten customers about our bad experiences, and also let other Land Rover Discover owners list there problems and grievances, so that prospective purchases of Land Rover products can see what they could be letting themselves in for, and subsequently that Land Rover realise the discontent of its customers and thus improve the reliability of the cars they manufacture and the after-car they provide for their customers, without whom, they would be out of business.
We feel that the product is fantastic in theory, but the practicalities of owning the car make the purchase of a Land Rover Discover a really bad and costly mistake, please feel free to comment on current articles, and add your own. We have an extensive Search Engine Optimisation and marketing campaigns and plan to make this website the major forum for all Land Rover models, we look forward to your help in achieving this.