Dell digging out from record low 58 customer satisfaction score - Silicon Valley Sleuth

Silicon Valley Sleuth, an insider's view from Silicon Valley
A blog from vnunet.com





Other blogs
PCW Inter@ctive
Your views, your comments, your say

Security Watchdog
Sniffing out IT security
issues

The test bed
The hottest products, news and gossip from PCW's
Labs.

IT Sneak
IT Sneak Blog rummages in the dustbin of IT events.

Backbytes
An irreverent and offbeat look at the lighter side of technology

InterActive Home
Your complete guide to home entertainment technology

Taking Stock
Gags and Gossip from Accountancy Age.

Gizmodo
The gadgets weblog.





« A different take on the internet driver's licence | Main | Time travel with Windows start screens »

Dell digging out from record low 58 customer satisfaction score

Could it be that Dell's customer nightmare was even worse than previously thought? The company offered Jeff Jarvis a look behind the scenes. Jarvis is a blogger who set off the 'Dell sucks' movement last year when he shared his hellish experience in getting a properly working notebook computer. The visit culminated in a story for Business Week.

Dell_hell750076 Internal Dell data, the company confessed, indicated that customer satisfaction scores plummeted to 58 in 2006 – on a 1 to 100 scale. This year it jumped back to 80 with high end customers and 74 with core consumers.

External research had shown a less dramatic drop to 74 this year, down from last year's 78. Even though that is still the lowest for the PC industry.

These scores are hard to compare, but Yahoo for instance scores 79 and Google's stands at 78.

A low score does indicate that few people will return to a certain vendor, spelling doom for future revenues. The reason why Dell fell so deep will make for some of the most obvious case studies in business schools.

Dell pushed its customer service outsourcing partners to keep conversations as brief as possible. As a result, clients would be transferred on a constant basis, just to make the metrics look good. As Jarvis experienced, this strategy failed solve any real problems. It was all Dell's flawed metrics, not about the customer.

060710_jeff_jarvis


Comments

Post a comment







Useful links: About | Privacy policy | Terms & conditions | Top of the page
© Incisive Media Ltd. 2008
Incisive Media Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, is a company registered in the United Kingdom with company registration number 04038503