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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Dell blog neglects burning battery recall

Since Dell launched its blog, I’ve been pretty staunch in my defense of the approach they’ve taken and counseled patience in letting them get up to speed. I still think they’re doing a good job and still counsel patience. But I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see a news report that Dell is recalling 4.1 notebook batteries but no mention on Direct2Dell.

The recall is for the battery that famously burst into flames back in June. Dell announced it was looking into the incident later in the month, and decided today to issue the recall.

When Dell launched the blog, many of the critical comments—both in other blogs and in comments to Direct2Dell—mentioned the flaming laptop as an issue the blog should have been used to address. I didn’t necessarily agree, but a self-effacing post admitting that the recall was necessary and has been gotten around to would have been appropriate. The oversight counts as a missed opportunity and fodder for the voices that continue to be critical of the blog.

UPDATE: Direct2Dell now has a comprehensive post on the recall. Why that post went up later than the CNN/Money report, though, is beyond me.

08/14/06 | 6 Comments | Dell blog neglects burning battery recall

Comments

  • 1.Yes, they have a comprehensive post on it the blog Shel but did you read it?

    It doesn't actually say anything (or nothing which could be construed as anything other than "we are great and we always put our customers safety first")!

    Tom Raftery | August 2006 | Cork, Ireland

  • 2.They also have a site dedicated to the recall, Tom. Of course, Sony made these batteries for Dell. I wonder if everybody's cynicism might be a bit misplaced. It took Dell too long to issue the recall, given the number of incidents, but Sony should have been right in there acting on problems with their product.

    Shel Holtz | August 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 3.Dell Recalls 4.1 Million Lithium-ion batteries.



    By: Wyatt
    Mood: Dont know
    Date: Aug 15, 2006
    Music: None



    Used in certain notebooks, the battery poses a potential fire hazard.

    http://www.mycommunityplace.com/blog/view/?ID=43 | August 2006

  • 4.Shel - thanks for the feedback on my Zealot blog about Dell which of course referred to your blog! Agree Dell should have blogged at the same time as going public - but curious if you monitored the time delay between public announcement and Dell posting on their own blog -was it minutes , hours, days? - Not making excuses for them, but I guess I'm curious if you think it was logistics or ignorance that got in the way! (As it happens, I have a Latitude D610 which I think is one of the laptops affected - interestingly, to date, I have not recieved any notification via email about the problem - maybe they just expect us to find out via the blogesphere or something)

    paul | August 2006 | Sydney

  • 5.Paul, I believe it was a matter of hours...enough time for a LOT of people to notice. I'm not blaming Dell, mind you -- they're new to this blogging thing. However, companies are going to need to learn to coordinate their official corporate blogs with other communication efforts. It's the first place consumers who know about the blog will go look to comment, and if there's nothing there, the company looks like they don't know what they're doing. It becomes a reputational issue.

    Shel Holtz | August 2006 | Concord, CA

  • 6.Shel, Tom and Paul, Appreciate your perspectives and insights, especially yoyur point about it being a reputational issue, Shel. It was at most a couple hours before the first blog posting occurred. Suffice it to say that not only is Dell new to blogging but the news broke, so Dell had to coordinate with others. We learn everyday :-)

    Richard | August 2006 | Austin, TX

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