How Dell Is Dealing With "Service Sucks" Comments on Facebook

Unlike some top internet retailers, Dell, which has over 530,000 fans and is listed as #3 on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 , is definitely into Facebook. Judging from the level of activity and the quality of such custom pages as their “splash” and “video,” they’ve obviously poured good time and money into the efforts. With good reason to0; have you ever owned a Dell? If you have (like the author of this article has), you probably know how it feels to deal with a repair problem, right? You dial the number and after eons of waiting, someone (who often has an accent too thick to comprehend, from an offshore call center) begins running through basic diagnostics. Then after half an hour or so, you realize ‘this is like asking a fish to roof your house.’ You hang up and hope the problem resolves itself or take it to the local PC repair geeks and pay for what Dell should have had fixed in the first place.

Now, instead of building a grudge against companies like Dell with no place to vent, you can confront them publicly with your complaints and concerns. This movement has been dubbed “Social Media as Customer Service.” Looking at Dell’s Facebook page, it appears they are ardent believers of the cause. Instead of deleting negative comments like some social media managers scurry to do, Dell is not only leaving them up, but actually responding to them.

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

But is responding enough to bring peace to the customer? It’s really hard to tell without asking, so this is what we posted on Dell’s Facebook wall on April 25, 2011:

Hi, I’m writing a blog titled “How Dell Is Dealing With “Service Sucks” Comments on Facebook” ….can you respond with how your “Social as Customer Service” campaign is working and whether customers seemed satisfied with the help they receive here (or is social proving to be no more helpful than a phone line?)

If we hear anything back, we’ll definitely include their quote, but for now it seems they are making a step in the right directly with using “Social as Customer Service.” And even if they’re not successful in helping customers directly solve their problems (unless they have IT on the social marketing staff working behind the scenes) at least they’re making the process transparent, which customers will appreciate (even if it does lose them some business at first from would-be shoppers seeing the negative comments).

For more information on how Dell is using “Social as Customer Service,” read “Dell China Is Listening to You on Chinese Social Media.”

Links to the Complete Four-part Series:

1) Analyzing Amazon’s Presence on Facebook

2) What Staples is Sticking to Facebook

3) How Dell Is Dealing With “Service Sucks” Comments on Facebook

4) Is Apple Having a Brand Identity Crises on Facebook?