Being Michael Dell

It can't be easy...Starting a company, developing one of the most powerful Sales teams the world has ever seen and then creating a revolutionary supply chain that has enabled millions of people to receive personally customized computers. Clearly Michael Dell is a talented man. A talented man with a serious problem.

What do you do when you are Michael Dell and public opinion suddenly begins to sway in an adverse direction? When Jeff Jarvis coined the term "Dell Hell" in 2005, Michael Dell was forced to deal with precisely that. So what would I do if I was Michael Dell....

THE PROBLEM

Jeff Jarvis posts a blog about his issues dealing with Dell customer service. The combination of a catchy name and relevant content sends his blog careening through the blogosphere until it is picked up by main stream news. Soon his blog is being cited by major news organizations like ABC and the NYTIMES. Dell begins to see a slide in public opinion, its stock price and its sales numbers.

PROPOSAL FOR MR DELL

The ideal solution is to make an advocate out of Mr. Jarvis. If this can be done authentically (without a blatent pay off that reaks of corporate corruption) all of the attention Dell Hell has generated can be leveraged as a PR opportunity for Dell.

Step One: Deal directly with Mr. Jarvis problems vis-a-vis customer service, use the Dell Hell blog to create an internal "to do list"

Step 2: Mr. Dell should send a personal letter to Mr. Jarvis. It should say something to the effect of:

Dear Mr. Jarvis,

You have spoken and we have heard you. I want to thank you for bringing to light major issues that had begun to torment our organization. As the recently rehired CEO, Iwanted to write to you personally and outline our plan for how we as a company are addressing your problems. I have also instructed my staff to send you a monthly bulletin explaining where we are in revamping our customer service process to make sure that it satisfies the needs of our valued customers.

We have made mistakes and we are working hard to fix them. While no company wants to go through the kind of PR debacle your blog clearly created for Dell, make no mistake, I personally view this as the best thing that could have happened to the company at this point in time. The efforts of you and your readers will not be in vain. We will overcome these challenges and we will work to earn back our place as your computer seller of choice.

As a further step, I would like to invite you to come to a series of strategy meetings we are having at the end of this month. I would invite you to bring any questions you might have so that we can be sure to incorporate them into our near term planning. In addition, if you have any other requests about ways in which we can provide increased transparency to you and your readers please let me know.

Sincerely,

MD

......

And then Mr. Dell...you would need to follow through!

-Don Simon