I Could be Richard @ Dell

Do you want to know who are the most visible and targeted people inside organizations? Communications professionals.

Whether you call us public affairs, public relations, communications or marketing communications in the title, we are usually listed on the corporate Web site. We are the ones who answer angry letters from customers, prospects, or anyone with a gripe against the company and its products and services. We are the ones with a mandate to get all employees on the same page. We answer the phone to every sales call from media to ad agencies to partners, write the CEO's speech, talk to the press, and massage that brochure so it has less fluff and more meat.

Superheroes we are not, although with the budgets that are left over these days, I might contend we are definitely in the running.

You have probably come across Direct2Dell by now. That is the virtual home of Lionel Menchaca, Dell's chief blogger (link to interview at The Buzz Bin).

There is another communicator who has become very important to Dell's social media outreach program and that is Richard Binhammer. Richard @ Dell -- how he signs in blogs' comments -- and I have been exchanging emails for a couple of months. He's been extremely patient and forthcoming with me during this time, even volunteered customers if I needed to talk to them directly for a story. No pushy pitches, no corporate speak, just conversation and straight answers to my questions.

Today's FC Expert blog post is about how Dell is using social media to regain its mojo. I won't give you the payoff, you'll need to take a peak at the story there. According to this recent article, due to competitive pressures from HP, the company has done a 180 on its direct built-to-order sales model and started selling its products retail at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores.

According to research firm IDC, HP had a worldwide PC market share of 19.3% for the quarter ending June 30 compared to Dell's 16.1%. In 2005, Dell dominated the playing field with 18.2% market share compared to HP's 15.7%.

On August 16, HP reported fiscal third quarter earnings of $2.1 billion on revenues of $25.4 billion, up 16% from the same quarter a year ago. HP also projected its annual revenues for the year ending October 31 at between $103 billion and $103.2 billion. Wall Street analysts expect Dell to report revenues of about $60 billion for its fiscal year ending January 30, according to Thomson Financial.

Quoting an interview with Wharton faculty:

Dell's biggest challenge is that the two pillars of its business model -- supply chain efficiency and direct build-to-order sales -- don't provide the advantage they once did.

The company's competitors have been busy closing the gap and Dell found itself without a specific plan to appeal to consumers; a weakness given the recent growth in the sector. Indeed, Dell was in the geek and not in the fashion business. Not taking risks is risky and now the company will need to wade into uncharted waters if it wishes to grow.

Among the challenges that lie ahead for Dell going directly to consumers are:

• Production -- painting a laptop is like painting a car, it discovered
• Online ordering errors
• Shipment delays
• Customer support

Dell thinks of its products in terms of microprocessors, disk drives and frames-per-second graphics; we don't care, all we want is for them to work, make us look cool and be easy to use. On the other hand, they do offer preinstalled Linux on consumer laptops and desktops.

What's Dell's advantage? They do have at least one. As for the company's social media outreach, I give them a ten. After all, I could be Richard @ Dell.

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Dell continues to impress me. They had a great guerrilla PR move with Jaffe's podcast a week ago, and just continue to participate in great ways. What a welcome addition to the blogosphere.

[Nathania - Bold Interactive]

I can attest to the excellence of Dell's Social Media efforts.

I recently bought a Dell Inspiron and documented the purchasing process. Each one of my three posts was responded to by someone from Dell. Two were comments and one was a direct contact.

Not only that, but I did receive my laptop this week and I LOVE IT. It's everything I wanted. Plus, my productivity has increased tremendously.

[Trisha]

Dell has always been a good company with a good product, the only brand I recommend to people who are not yet ready to make the leap to a Mac. You can't go wrong buying a Dell.

I'm very glad to see they are reaching out in new ways to communicate with customers - happy customers refer other customers, so this can only help them regain their footing and stature in the market.

Now if they could just fix some of their pricing inconsistencies on their products... :)

[Connie Reece]

I'm chiming in on the "Dell gets social media" bandwagon. People from Dell have participated in all of our Social Media Club meetings here in Austin since the beginning. They're very open, always willing to serve as a resource to the social media community, and have been a lot of fun to get to know.

In fact, Lionel Menchaca, John Pope and Caroline Dietz of Dell's Digital Media team will be the panel at our SMC meeting tonight. Laura Thomas from Dell's corporate office will be speaking at an upcoming event about Dell's presence in Second Life and their addition of virtual customer service hours there.

And the delightful, all-over-the-blogosphere Richard@Dell is helping us plan a day-long workshop for Nov. 6 with Dell as the event sponsor.

As always, Valeria, I enjoy reading your take on things. Off to look at the FC article now.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Geoff -- you know, for many years we talked about work/life balance (a myth) and office/home separation (free agency debunked that). There is one conversation... and I won't say more, you'll have to wait for the details on Oct. 4 ;-)

Nathania -- it is nice to have that kind of personal attention. Much better than a personalized postcard with your name on it, isn't it?

Trisha -- yes, one of the reasons why I think their strategy may pay off on the business side is that so far there are indications that the company is listening to your sort of input and making changes accordingly where possible.

Connie -- it's always so nice to have you visit! Another reason to like Austin, I see. I look forward to reading about the event and the workshop.

[RichardatDELL]

Wow Valeria, thats a post :-). We really appreciate your outside perspective that reaffirms our sense of going down the right path. Geoff thanks for the call out because being part of the community and conversation is important to us....it's how we learn and adapt and improve our business.

Often, for us, getting out there, entering conversations, listening, learning (and sometimes putting forward our point of view and perspective) we wonder if we are making progress. Although you can't go wrong by listening and learning.

But right here, Valeria reassures us to keep at it. Nathania makes its clear (Thank you!) we are having an impact and making progress, and also thrilled that you like the new laptop. Trisha, i heard you on the pricing -- we are working on that. Connie, our paths keep crossing...tonight should be fun and informative and thrilled about the Nov 6 Social Media Club session.

To all we appreciate the feedback

[Valeria Maltoni]

Richard:

I have enjoyed our exchanges filled with business talk, humor, and personal anecdotes -- just the way of social media. Let's continue the conversation, since you already know that every dot connects with Connie, I'm sure our paths will cross again soon.

Maybe if any of you is in this neck of the woods we can have a drink and swap stories. Thank you again for dropping by.