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Lionel Menchaca's business card reads: "Dell Computer Digital Media Manager." But his real job is to be the public voice of the Texas-based computer maker, through its Direct2Dell blog and other programs. It's not the easiest assignment in his 14 years with Dell, but it's possibly his most important.
Two years ago, bloggers starting complaining about poor service at Dell. Last year, the company slapped a cease-and-desist notice on a consumer-tips website after it carried "insider" details on how to get the best deal on a computer. Menchaca's job was to quell the resulting Web furor, through the Direct2Dell blog. His blunt assessment: "We got it wrong." Menchaca's work has helped repair many of Dell's image problems. Here's how he did it.
tq How did you become the official Dell blogger?
Lionel Menchaca I started in tech support before moving into hardware and operating-system support. Last April, Michael Dell came to us with this idea about going to the blogsphere and finding people who where saying things about Dell and connecting them with support folks to resolve their issues. That's how I started out, looking at some of the higher-profile blogs listed on Technorati.com. We contacted people who were posting stuff about Dell on their blogs or offered to help them with their problems.
tq What was the reaction when you made contact?
LM A lot of people were skeptical: "What? Are you really from Dell?" Others were shocked. I mean, they have small blogs, maybe an audience of 10 people, and they'd say, "You mean someone at Dell reads my blog? Wow!"
Lionel Menchaca is the official Dell blogger (Justin Cox)
tq When did you decide to launch the Direct2Dell blog?
LM We reported back to Michael about our experiences and said we thought it was a good idea to do a blog as well. We told him we could launch in a couple of months. He said, "If it's a good idea, let's do it now. You've got three weeks." I think we were actually up in four.
tq You won kudos for using the blogs to communicate with customers during the exploding-batteries affair. What was going on behind the scenes?
LM It was coincidental that we launched the blog on July 10, 2006, just before that happened. Then I posted a video on the blog of the exploding Dell in Osaka. I got quite a bit of reaction from people at Dell. "What the heck are you doing?" they asked me. "You're drawing attention to this." My response was that we had to deal with the positive and the negative. And we had support from Michael, who understood that. The story was rampant, and people were expecting us to say something. So we kept posting every time we had something new, and we set up an RSS feed so people could get the latest developments.
tq What doesn't work on a corporate blog?
LM When we launched, we put up four postings, and not one of them had a link. Someone noted it was like talking to a wall. I thought, "Oh my gosh, how could we have forgotten something like that?" We got something like 300 comments, and I was responding to them all, and I kept thinking, "How could I have gotten myself into something like this?" It was surreal. But then I posted something and added four links. I noted that they were the first four links and counting. It showed we were listening.
tq Does Michael Dell plan to blog?
LM Not right now. We've posted video of some public appearances, and we may post video messages. But if he wrote a blog, it'd be one post in April and then another one in September. You can't do that with a blog. Besides, what we've found is that it's the content that people are interested in, not so much the title of the blogger. Still, having Michael as the sponsor certainly helped get the blog started. You need people who are committed to doing it right, and you have to be ready to deal with negative things. And you have to be human and personal. You can't expect anything if you don't have those things.
tq How has leveraging Web 2.0 assisted the bottom line?
LM In terms of ROI, it's very difficult. There's no question, I think the blog and the Ideastorm site [a direct pipeline to the CEO's office, for suggestions about products, services and prices] have helped change perceptions about Dell. When we started, the tone of the blogs out there were at their worst point for Dell, with about 48 % of them negative toward us. Now we're at 24 % negative. I'd say we're having a positive impact. When we do the kind of outreach we're doing and fix things and help people, I think they're willing to give Dell another chance. So it ends up increasing customer loyalty, if you do it right.
