One of the great lessons of the cluetrain era is that your customers are your best customer support agents and marketers if only you allow them … and respect them enough to listen to them. Dell does’t. As we reported the other day, Dell shut its general customer forums… which should be the place for customers to help each other. Dwight Silverman found Dell’s company line:
As for the Customer Care board, many of the non-technical issues posted there can only be addressed by authorized Dell representatives with access to customer information – not by peers as the Forum is designed to facilitate. That said, these questions are best handled through other secure online tools.
Or, clueless Dell, your customers can just blog their questions and answers without you. Or should I say, former customers?