Dell’s crowdsourcing platform Ideastorm was launched February 2007, less than two year’s after the infamous “Dell Hell” scenario that left the company’s reputation reeling. Created specifically to give customers a direct connection to the brand, Ideastorm invites users to submit ideas for products and services and to vote on the potential creations they like best. Dell executives then consider the highest-rated ideas for product development.
The initiative flew in the face of traditional one-way messaging models, fostering open conversations and even opening the company up to potential criticisms. With Ideastorm came “Blood, Sweat, and a Couple of Spreadsheets,” a new customer engagement model which reads as follows*:
1. Use monitoring techniques to identify blog posts mentioning Dell.
2. Assign a sentiment rating and category to each post.
3. Triage the blog posts that mention the company; sort into three categories: (1) public affairs, (2) customer service, (3) none of the above, but another department within Dell can address the blogger’s concerns.
4. The Dell social media communications team is split into customer service and public affairs. Once the posts have been categorized within an Excel spreadsheet, team members work to address the issue.
5. A reply or connection is made with the blogger or customer. A notation is made in the Excel spreadsheet, and any response from the customer, blogger or other commentators is monitored for a subsequent follow up.
Ultimately, this protocol would be replaced by TruCast, a product from Visible Technologies that enables more advanced tracking and response procedures. Thus, thanks to Ideastorm and Dell’s completely open engagement philosophy, the company now leads the crowdsourcing movement, reputational risks be damned.
*Source: “Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media,” published by the Society for New Communications Research, 2008.