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BACK IN THE SUMMER of 2005, Dell ignored Jeff Jarvis' complaints about a lemon laptop at its own peril. The blogger's "Dell Hell" rants teed up a mainstream story starring the PC manufacturer as an arrogant giant that became a case study in how one man's website could shred a corporate reputation.
Now Dell, working to shrug off that image and right recent business declines, might be on to a different kind of web-based watershed. In mid-February, it launched IdeaStorm, a place for customers to submit suggestions about its products that's become the repository for more than 5,500 recommendations and 24,000 comments. The community has already inspired 21 initiatives, much to the delight of observers such as Mr. Jarvis. Even he has softened a bit toward Dell.
Behold the present and future of customer service, a business function best understood as a one of those survival games where someone is dropped off in the middle of a forest sans map or compass and told to find his way home. As practiced by many companies, it now puts the average consumer through a dark wood of computerized directories, callbacks that never come and barely comprehensible customer reps with no real authority or information.
That game is nearing an end due to a simple fact of the digital era: The back-and-forth between companies and consumers, once contained in frustrated phone calls and letter-writing, is now being played out in public. The growth of consumergenerated media-not...