3 Reasons Why Dell Is The World’s Most Social Company

1. They are passionate social listeners

Dell’s been tuning into our social conversations about them for the past 5 years.  Initially it started as a small project, but Michael Dell quickly ramped up the program by asking the team, “Why aren’t we monitoring everything in the realm about us?”

Today, Dell uses sentiment analysis to identify issues with their brand and products in order to proactively solve customer support issues.  They monitor consumer trends for potential R&D benefits. And they analyze their industry’s social stream to stay informed of competitor impact and activities. 

2. They have social media university

“We have 10,000 Dell employees trained as social media professionals,” said Susan Beebe, Dell’s Chief Listener, “but we want a lot more people at Dell trained to be brand ambassadors.”  In fact, Beebe wants to see everyone at Dell trained in social media.

“We now have Dell social experts worldwide to help our customers,” Beebe said, “and we’re listening and engaging in 11 languages.”   Beebe gives credit to one of the Fortune 100’s top CMO’s Karen Quintos for helping to drive this initiative.

“Karen is very passionate about customer service. She sees the impact we’re having with customers and the positive impact on Dell the brand,” Beebe emphasized, “I don’t think there’s any other company more committed to helping customers.”

The results are greater customer loyalty and brand perception through one-on-one direct relationships with customers.

TIP: for more information on the Dell Social Media University check out this interview by the Radian 6 team.

3. They turn customers into brand advocates

Getting Dell’s 103,000 employees certified in Social Media isn’t enough for Menchaca, Beebe, and Jason Duty leader of Dell’s Social Outreach Services.  “Building relationships with our customers so that they become advocates is one of our top initiatives,” said Duty, “last year the internal perception was that our customers were not engaged with us. So I was tasked with building a team to change that perception.”

With almost 600,000 Facebook fans on the consumer site alone, Dell is easily in the top 1% of technology companies.  But the Dell Social team isn’t satisfied with fans alone; they want brand advocates.  The strategy begins with publicly thanking their customers for buying Dell. It then continues with identifying industry influencers and and nurturing them.

“Throughout last year, we encountered a number of people that were influential,” Jason Duty tells me, “we helped them out and sure enough they’d write or tweet about Dell in a positive way.”