All Posts Tagged With: "Dell"
Lessons Learned from Dell Hell
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…
29Dec2009 | Steve George | 0 comments | Continued
