Bloggers Damage Brands
NetImperative publish a paper that sets out to quantify how bloggers can damage a brand. The paper uses blogger’s criticism of Dell. It shows that Dell has sustained long-term damage to its brand image and secondly bloggers were responsible for this damage by plotting how the message was spread. You might argue the "Dell Hell" was something that was happening irrespective of bloggers, but it is an interesting read if you blog.
Quote:
We take as an example the blogger Jeff Jarvis and his blogsite Buzzmachine. Jeff Jarvis had a faulty Dell laptop and a negative experience of Dell’s customer service. He blogged about this and brought the story into mainstream coverage from the Washington Post, The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Our study examines whether Jeff Jarvis has had any impact on the public perception of Dell’s customer service.
Quote:
“We wanted to take a scientific approach – objectively demonstrating which bloggers have authority and an ability to affect corporate reputation.” Rogers said. “Using the science of citation indexing, and the Dell case study, we are able to quantify and analysis the impact each blogger has on a company’s brand image and analyse the indirect influence as well as direct impact: proving that blogging has a significant affect on reputation.”
The pdf file of the whole paper is here.
(when I accessed their site, it was very slow.)
- Y! MyWeb
so it's all the bloggers
so it's all the bloggers fault that Dell's reputation is damaged and has nothing to with Dell having lousy customer service ...
To what end
Does this 'scientific study' influence corporations and bloggers?
I can see the bloggers in the crosshairs of corporate lawyers as I'm writing this...
Perhaps the fact that my wife had to replace 3 Dell laptops in less than 2 years and her company dumped Dell as their official vendor last year, maybe that kind of crap has more to do with BRAND DAMAGE than some blogger sites in an idiotic whitepaper.
It goes back to the old known truth that dissatisfied customers are usually the loudest and most vocal regardless of the medium they use be it letters to editors, blogs, epinions, Amazon's customer comments, etc.
Here's my scientic whitepaper:
Dell, fix your shit and people will stop complaining.
Corporations hate free speach
Large corporations was used to controll most mass communications before the web - just by being large, powerfull and rich. Those times are over and they hate it. Tuff shit!
If Dell would produce better computers, accept when they have "monday models" and generally treat their customers with more respect maybe they wouldn't get so much bad talk - on- and offline.
Dell computers are probably
Dell computers are probably not the problem. I've been using Dell for 5 years now and won't switch brands. It's the support call centers in Asia that are killing them.
Americans need subtitles when talking to Brits, they sure as hell can't understand a thick Indian accent. And vice versa, I'm sure an Indian in a call center couldn't pick up half the slang from a call from the deep south or even from a Ebonic influenced caller. LOL
My Dell computer is fine
Still, the Dell customer service sucks beyond all comprehension. In every single department. It isn't the accents, it's the rank stupidity. When I have a problem with an order, I don't care where the customer service person was born, I only care if they have a brain. Dell seems to only care if they have a warm body.
Hey, maybe Jeff Jarvis can help them improve.
Never had a Dell but after
Never had a Dell but after reading this I am now well informed :P One less Dell customer here.
Power
I suggest that news media and corporate America stop speaking badly of us or we will drown them in our wake...
The Dell I have (Inspiron
The Dell I have (Inspiron 8600) simply dosn't work and Dell just claim that it is MS Office 2003, Skype and all sorts of other wide spread programs that's the problem - NOT Dell. This is the last Dell we ever buy in my companies. They just simply suck
"so it's all the bloggers
"so it's all the bloggers fault that Dell's reputation is damaged and has nothing to with Dell having lousy customer service ..."
Absolutely - bloggers don't damage brands - they simply tell what's already broken.
Never a DELL Moment
Although I won't get one after the problems my wife had with her laptops, there do seem to be a fair amount of people happy with them. Heck, I'm on my second HP without a glitch yet many harp on HP all the time and my sis-in-law had 2 HPs crap out but it turned out to be software, not the machine.
I'm thinking it's more of what day yours was made than anything, which batch of components that went into the box makes a heck of a difference.
For those of you that don't know, I used to work in the disk drive and tape backup industry doing EPROMS and OS Drivers back in the early 80s so I'm very familiar with component quality issues. When we got a new batch (aka TRUCKLOAD) of hard disks we only took one box of them off of the truck, ran them thru a test matrix and if the data failure percentage was too high they were boxed back up and the whole truckload went back.
I'm honestly not sure that level of QC exists these days.
I like Dells. I have never
I like Dells. I have never had serious problems with them and every problem I have had was supported by the Dell call center with out any problems.
I've always
We've always gotten Micron computers (buympc.com). Now, these cost more than some brands, but we've found that the parts are quality, and they last a long time pretty much without incident. Plus, their customer support is good.
I've always thought of Dell as the low-end choice. If I really had to get a cheap computer, that would be a option -- but I certainly wouldn't expect the same quality at rock-bottom prices.
with sites like newegg.com
with sites like newegg.com building your own computer is so much easier. With Dell or any other company you get discounted software but when you save on part by buying online it's the best way to go. I think my next computer will be the seomike diy2006 ;p
Yes indeed
SEOmike - I have always built my own units, this way if something breaks you just go downstairs to your computer boneyard and pull out a part to replace. Those who like to play Quake and other online games that require horsepower wouldn't have it any other way!