Why won't Dell listen to its customers?
Posted: 2008-09-15
Dear Dell, My family has bought and owned Dell machines for as long as i can remember but we and many others are getting tired of not being listened to. Please forgive us all for feeling abandoned. We were all overjoyed when IdeaStorm was announced and we could post the kinds of things we wanted there, but Dell only seems to be half-listening, and only keeping us partially in the loop. Immediately after it was released, thousands of voices called out for GNU/Linux and free software. Dell made a huge step with their Ubuntu offering, and we were very very thankful.
Why now, has Dell seemed to stop listening? Many requests with tons of support not only haven't been fulfilled, but haven't even been acknowledged with any sort of response. For example, this post ( http://www.ideastorm.com/
People around the world have been calling for your Ubuntu offer, so why has it only been made available in certain areas? Why isn't Ubuntu available on all machines that it works on? Why haven't you responded to your customers? Are you truly at the hands of Microsoft? This would be bad for customers, and bad for you in the long run. I, and many others, truly feel wronged here.
The 10th most popular idea on the entire site asks for Coreboot pre-installed on Dell machines. I know if Dell did this, i'd never consider buying a machine from anywhere else, but Dell hasn't even responded to the idea even though it gained it's popular long ago. Even the #2 most popular post, asking for OpenOffice installed by default, hasn't been replied to! The issue has been so bad that people are making posts asking for Dell to listen and at least keep us in the loop!
We all thought that Dell would be more open after IdeaStorm gave us a more direct voice. You know what your customers want, but you simply ignore them. As you should notice, since you have stopped listening, many have stopped speaking, and soon you will begin to lose us. We all really appreciate what you have done so far, but it seems like you are backing out. Why aren't you serving your customers? If you don't change this trend you're going to lose me and i know many other customers are saying the same thing.
We're not asking for a lot. At the very least we want to be kept in the loop. We want to be able to have a dialogue with you. This isn't about you granting us everything we ask for-- it's about communicating with us. We want more than a "yes" or "no," an "under review" or "reviewed." Tell us what influences your decisions, and allow us respond. Why is it that the only defense i keep hearing for you is that it isn't you're business to care? I think that even you'll agree that's not a very good reason.
I'm not sure where else to go with this. I can't figure out why this isn't a priority for Dell. Please Dell, PLEASE, don't abandon us!