Processor Gate: Dell engaging social media in Asia Pacific

Imagethief has further thoughts on Dell's "processor gate" here. However, what is even more interesting to me is that T.R. Reid, Dell's AP regional director of corporate communications, put up a comment to Imagethief's post, the same comment that was in the Business Week article here.

We made and have acknowledged an error in our marketing material. That error has since been corrected. While there's no performance difference between the T2300 and T2300e in notebook computers, customer experience matters most. So we contacted customers when we realized the error, apologized, and explained the comparable performance. Most customers were satisfied. For those who were not, we offered refunds for returned systems. Some customers have taken us up on this offer. We welcome discussion of Dell in the blogosphere, in China and elsewhere. We're learning from and contributing to blogs, on a range of topics. As for China, we are the second-largest supplier of computer-systems in the country, which suggests a large and growing number of customers see value in what we offer. We serve customers in more than 2,000 cities in China. And we just opened a second manufacturing plant and are one of the country's largest exporters (to Japan and South Korea) in any industry.

First off, I think it is brilliant that Dell is engaging bloggers like Imagethief so quickly (within 1 day of the post going up). It is representative of Dell's proactive approach to social media PR that can be seen in their recent launch of its English corporate blog and its engagement with bloggers in general. While there have been mis-steps (i.e. the attack by PR intern of Jeff Jarvis on his own blog), and not all A-list PR bloggers are satisfied (read Steve Rubel, among others), all in all, I extend kudos to Dell for its approach. They are on the right track.

In the end, however, while Imagethief is certainly an influential and brilliant blogger, especially for within Asia Pacific PR, I don't think he is really the guy that Mr. Reid should be engaging. I would guess that very few Chinese netizen notebook fans read Imagethief.

So lets take a look at what they did with the original crisis. Looking at the progression of events, we see that Dell is actually paying attention to Chinese social media, though they seem to not move quite as fast.

On June 28, 5 days after the first consumer complaint on BBS, and 4 days after IT168 set up a special forum about the issue, Dell issued what is reported to be an "official statement" through IT168 and reported by IT168 on its special Dell Complaints page(my translation):

The CPU manufacturer (Intel) had previously confirmed that the letter "E" is not a critical part in the processor naming convention. Our documentation doesn't include this fact and we sincerely apologize for any subsequent customer misunderstanding.

On July 5, IT168 communinicated that Dell was willing to offer a refund:

After IT168’s active contact with Dell, Dell is promising to provide a further solution to this issue. Those consumers who have been involved in this incident can get refund through normal sales procedure

Analysis: Dell was a little slow in responding to the brewing incident (5 days for IT168 vs. 1 day for Imagethief), but at least they were listening. While the language was very "official" corporate-speak style, at least Dell did not issue a press release. Dell wisely went through IT168 as a mediator instead of addressing consumers directly in the forums. Engaging "angry" consumers in a public space where messages recorded for all time is a bad move and would have only increased chaos.

What I think was ultimately the biggest wrong move was to not offer the refund to begin with on June 28. IT168's notebook forums are filled with notebook experts who actually pay attention to things like processor part numbers and know what "virtualization" technology is and care about it. To tell these experts that this technology is "not important" will do nothing to placate them. It may not be important to most consumers, but it is important to these very knowledgeable and very vocal "super" consumers. These are the kind of consumers who are the ones that friends, families, and procurement managers go to when seeking advice about what computer to buy. Simply put, these are the last guys you want to piss off.

One thing that should not be missed in this whole episode is that there are more players than just Dell and "the consumers."

The lawyer clearly had his own interests in taking on this case.

But more interesting is the role of IT168, the website. Would this processor issue have created so much buzz if IT168 had not created a special section for the crisis to stimulate interest? IT168, throughout all communications, is portraying itself and being portrayed as fighting for consumer rights. In the end, IT168 may be the biggest winner in all of this, and having a crisis (whether instigated by IT168 or not), definitely brought the site increased exposure.

In the end, it appears that there can be a fine line between BBS sites as "mediators" of crisis' and "instigators" of crisis'. We see a similar case with KFC's TVC "University-Gate." The crisis was "facilitated" on TianyaClub with prominent placement of conversations. Later, KFC sponsored a TVC rewrite contest on Tianya. Nice benefit for Tianya. Similar things are happening in the US, with The Consumerist receiving increased exposure thanks to its continued exposure of questionable AOL customer retention practices (though they certainly are not getting any of AOL's advertising dollars).

Disclaimer: I have done my best to present the case accurately based on our thorough review of media, BBS, blog conversations surrounding this case which can, be at times, contradictory and ephemeral. If there is something I have missed, or something that is not accurate, please do let me know.

See also:
Micropersuasion: Dell Customers in China Seek Revenge Over Processorgate