From Dell We Learnt

Dell uses social media to listen, learn and engage with our customers

Our customers have the best ideas and insights. Through social media, they take part in more than 25,000 conversations about Dell every day. What we learn from our customers online helps us be a better company and deliver the precise products and services our customers need to be successful. That makes us a better partner to them and their organizations.

For us, social media is far more than a tool — it's an extension of our brand, which is all about enabling people everywhere to use technology to grow and thrive.

These words are from Dell's company's homepage. Dell, this originally began and grown in America brand, treats groundswell more and more important than before.

Let's start from Dell's transformation story

When you open Dell's website, you will find it is extremely concise-company and community. The website really gives a well indication that groundswell is as important as a company. Groundswell means everything to a company like Dell.

Dell's transformation can be described as amazing and successful. From the very beginning, complain everywhere till a well self-managing community. To recap, Dell shakes off its stupor and jumps into action at the executive ranks:

1. It took a crisis or two to get Dell started.
2. Dell mastered one thing at a time, starting with listening.
3. Executive push and cover made the difference.
4. Authenticity was crucial.

Transformation

When talking about how can organisations can prepare for a transformation, <Groundswell> written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff offers companies advice like below:

First, start small. The change will take time, and company typically only has so much political power to use any one time.

Second, educate your executives. Some of companies' managers think this is for their kids, not their customers. Show them otherwise with research to demonstrate the specific benefits for the company.

Third, get the right people to run your strategy. Pick the person who has the most passion about starting a relationship with customers.

Fourth, get your agency and technology partners in sync. If managers do not understand the groundswell, get them to invest the time and sources-or change agencies.

Fifth, plan for the next step and for the long term.

My perspective

After reading all the book, I realised that the steps companies took to embrace the groundswell are based on thousands of mistakes they made. Transformation made by companies to embrace groundswell has not only external barriers but also from internal barriers. Only when companies met resistance, they will think of groundswell. Only when companies have already made their mind to embrace groundswell, they can adopt into the world with groundswell. Transformation of companies really needs a great patient and efforts to accomplish.