Dell's marketing e-mail FAIL

Posted on Sep 2, 2009 in Marketing | 0 comments

Recently I purchased a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with the sole purpose of creating a “Hackintosh,” a computer running Apple’s OS X operating system on non-Apple hardware. I could (and may) write an entire post on that subject, mostly about how (sort of) fun it is and that a 9″ netbook keyboard is this close to unusable. Instead I’m going to illustrate a perfect example of how a company can infuriate its customers through poor marketing.

To be fair, it’s actually poor marketing implementation. Since purchasing the Mini 9 on Dell’s site, I’ve been adequately impressed with their process. Sure, their online configuration tool is a bit wonky and full of annoying upsells. But their messaging—at least around their netbooks—isn’t terrible and I’ve been satisfied with their follow-ups. I received the obligatory order confirmation and shipping notification e-mails; a tailored physical mailer with information about the Mini 9 (a nice touch); and today, I received a marketing e-mail. Its subject read “Your Opinion Counts – Review Your Recent Purchase Today at Dell.com” and enticed me to review the Mini 9 and possibly win a $500 gift card. Since I’m enjoying the machine I figured, what the heck?

Click! goes my mouse on the brightly colored “Rate it here” image. As the page loads, I read the instructions telling me to “click the ‘sign in to write a review’ link” on the page. Easy enough. Or, it would have been if the page I was directed to contained any information about the Mini 9. It doesn’t. I waited for the annoying animation to load (Dell: next time you include a “skip this intro” link in your Flash, don’t make it part of the Flash so users have to wait for the initial load to start), then clicked “Choose your mini >”, already wishing I’d been brought to the Mini 9′s page directly.

Once there, I’m presented with two visually-attractive choices: the Dell Mini 10 or Mini 10v. That’s great, but no where is there a Mini 9. I’d heard it’d been discontinued, but c’mon: if Dell’s asking me to review it on Sept. 2, they should have a facility to do so on the site they directed me to. In frustration I scanned through the page, even searching for the exact string included in the e-mail: “Sign In to Write a Review” but even that text cannot be found. The product list in the page’s footer bears no mention of the Mini 9, not even a discontinuation notice or link to Mini 9 support information. (Crayon-in-the-hands-of-a-three-year-old emphasis is mine, but that’s probably obvious.)

In short, this is a huge fail on the part of Dell’s marketing team to ensure a positive customer experience. I’m not claiming that’s an easy task; I know from experience it’s not. But Dell’s a huge company that relies on positive brand experiences to keep customers happy—and returning. This marketing e-mail fail not only tells me my opinion doesn’t count, it makes me think twice about buying from Dell in the future.

UPDATE (6 Oct. 09): A week after posting this, I got the e-mail again. It was the same e-mail as far I as could tell. Thinking the problem had been resolved, I clicked. If you’re curious about what I saw, just read this post over again from the beginning: nothing had changed.

I just had to follow up, so I wrote the Dell Webmaster a very explicit (but quite polite) summarizing my experience. I followed the golden rule of web support requests and included full URLs to every page I mentioned. My response was a simple “please describe in detail what happened so we can investigate” message. Not helpful, considering I’d already provided the information. But, I wrote back outlining what I’d already written and reminded them about this blog post.

Fast forward two weeks. I’d heard nothing, so I inquired about the status of my outstanding issue.

Another two weeks and still nothing! So I wrote this politely-worded, yet firm, message:

Dear Dell Webmaster(s) -
This is my second follow-up. Why have you not answered? I’ve provided every bit of information you requested, including direct links to the discussed pages, including a link to a blog post that explicitly details the issue I had. As I’ve said, this purchase was my first interaction with Dell and while I was initially satisfied with the purchase process and your brand, your lack of follow-through on your own e-mail marketing is disheartening. I’ve taken the time to work with you to correct the issue, but you’ve not had the courtesy to respond. Even if you don’t have an answer to the issue, I’d still expect a notification of that.
It’s now been almost a month since the original interaction.
I look forward to hearing your response,

We’ll see what happens. I hope I get a response… I really didn’t start out to be a Dell-hater.

Related: If you liked this, check out:

1. More than one way to skin an e-mail account Today, I logged into my Gmail account. “That’s strange,” I...
2. Signal-to-noise ratios in e-mail signatures Eight percent. How’s that for a ratio of useful content...
3. Design Fail: Printer Drivers Disclaimer: I don’t really like printers. Printing to me is...
4. The best marketing ever comes from somewhere you wouldn’t expect No, Nova Scotia is not some crazy name for a...
5. Examples of design as a fail-safe measure Who would have thought a prohibition on brown M&Ms could...