In the mid-1990s, I helped a Dell facility apply for the Texas Quality Award. It had world-class manufacturing processes that allowed it to build desktop computers from specs on paper to a customized computer ready for shipment in four hours. They called it “moving at Dell speed.” Asked how it measured performance, everyone pointed to Dell’s stock price, which was climbing so fast the company did 2-for-1 stock splits six times from 1995 to 1999.

It strengths obscured its weaknesses, one of which was the lack of systematic approaches to engaging customers who were not corporate buyers. Dell assumed that the orders it received every day told it all it needed to know about its customers. It took orders. It didn’t listen. And that had to change.

In the introduction to Mark Benioff’s book, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company—and Revolutionized an Industry, Michael Dell, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell, describes IdeaStorm, an online community forum the company uses to get ideas from its customers. As of today, customers have contributed more than 13,000 ideas through IdeaStorm, which were promoted by other customers nearly 710,000 times, with more than 88,000 comments. Dell has implemented 390 of its customers’ ideas.

In truth, IdeaStorm is a response to “Dell Hell,” a post written by blogger Jeff Jarvis in 2005 that became a lightning rod for customer complaints about Dell’s service. Jarvis had bought a Dell laptop that didn’t work and he couldn’t get anyone at Dell to help him. His post tapped a deep vein of frustration among Dell customers. The company had gotten too big, had focused too much on cutting costs, and had drifted when its visionary founder retired. One could argue that Michael Dell returned to lead the company because of the firestorm caused by Dell Hell.

IdeaStorm is one of several approaches Dell has implemented to listen to and learn from its customers, but while it is getting better at engaging customers, it still has problems satisfying them. A Google search of “Dell customer service” reveals page after page of disgruntled customers, some as recent as this month.

The lessons to be learned from Dell’s experience are:

• Design processes for listening to and learning from customers at the same time you are designing your products and services
• Implement processes for gathering, analyzing, and acting on customer information
• Identify key measures of customer engagement and satisfaction and communicate performance on those measures
• Make customer-driven excellence a core value of your organization now, before you get a reputation for driving customers away

To find out more about customer-driven excellence, read:

• Dangerous Assumptions about Customers
• Bottom-Line Value of Customer Engagement
• 10 Critical Questions: Your Customers
• Creating a Positive Customer Experience
• 9 Ways to Get Closer to Customers
• KEYSTONE: Customer Knowledge

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