Dell catches the Cluetrain

Mashable posted an interesting interview with Richard Binhammer about how Dell has turned its Twitter presence into something that will make it money. You can read the full piece, but basically the words of advice are as follows:

1. Be on Twitter to build better relationships with customers, not make wads of cash.
2. Have a diverse approach. Don’t confine yourself to one account, but maybe have several accounts with your company’s brand that serve several purposes (i.e. one for news, one for customer service, etc.)
3. Don’t just be a spammer. Ask questions of your audience. Listen to them. Show it in your tweets.

My favorite Binhammer quote from the article:

“Dell first heard about Twitter at SXSW a few years back and got excited about the listening aspect of Twitter.”

All of this made me think about The Cluetrain Manifesto, a wonderful book I’ve been rereading this month in preparation for two independent study efforts I’m doing with grad students this semester. Cluetrain celebrated its 10th anniversary last year but remains as fresh and relevant now as it was in the late ’90s. The book is packed with ideas, but what sticks out to me is this: As media move toward more interactive and socially connected operations, businesses that survive and thrive in this new world will be ones that use social media to reconnect with their customers at a human level.

Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberger use their 95 theses to argue for a marketplace that is more geared to conversation with consumers. Technology has this wonderful benefit of automating everything, but that can be a form of disconnection. Case in point, I recently had a credit card charge with Chase Bank that I disputed because it was fraudulent. It took me three months to resolve it correctly because I had to weave through a maze of customer service reps, departments, and correspondence that happened across several disconnected platforms (e-mail, fax, mail). What could have been fluid and logical in the way it went through the system instead became asynchronous, illogical and frustrating because of gaps in communication and whole departments that don’t deal with one another’s business. It’s not surprising given what you get just for calling customer service:  Chase makes you wander through the maze of their automated phone system before getting a CSR, a clear hint that they’d rather me talk to the automated system than a live person.

Technology made it possible to handle my claim in a detached way. What Cluetrain’s authors argue is that in the age of interactive media what can be should not necessarily be. The first thesis sets the table:

“Markets are conversations.”

We form relationships via commerce, relationships that go beyond the point of sale over time. We’ve gotten away from that idea of the street market where buyer and seller haggle, discuss, argue politics, talk about grandkids, and sometimes even do a transaction. In the corporate age where it’s all gone digital, the human element has been removed from our commerce. Customer service, once that unique chance for consumer and company to interact and solve a problem together, is now outsourced abroad in pursuit of the bottom line and no eye on the damage done when relationships become cold and mechanized.

Perhaps all of this is easy on the company because computers can automate the process, but it disconnects companies from their customers. Most everyone grumbles about their CS calls going to India, for example, and it’s not because we hate India. It’s because another layer of bureaucracy has been added between us and the decision makers with whom we do business. We become disconnected from the relationship that ought to be formed by the simple choice of buying something, to the point where we now have relationships with companies instead of people (and even talk about it in those terms). We live an age where we are hyperconnected to one another and yet have more trouble than ever communicating.

Markets are conversations. The warning in Cluetrain is that if businesses don’t wise up to the reality that interactive media is changing the mindset of consumers then they will suffer because of it. Connective media is rewiring us in terms of what we expect, and being treated like a number instead of a person is directly in the crosshairs.

Which brings us back to Dell. They’re doing something that all businesses ought to be doing. They’re listening. They aren’t using Twitter merely to become pushers of their own message; they’re in it for the conversation. There are lessons for those of us with a message to get out. Use the @reply feature. Retweet. Ask questions. Thank people for retweeting your stuff.

And they’re making money because of it. Customers feel like they’re being taken care of, treated like a person. Dell, a multinational coporation, has a more human face because of Twitter.

When you think about it, asking questions, answering questions, talking, and being polite is really how Actual Humans get along. Twitter is a chance for companies, marketers and even salty old journalists to communicate with the public in a way that mimics how we do it in real life. Dell has learned the lessons of Cluetrain, at least when it comes to Twitter. Have the rest of us?