We listen. You win.

You, our customers, are at the heart of everything we do at Dell. We know that for us to be successful, you need to be successful, and to understand what success looks like — we listen, we learn, then we act. Turns out, this is a good formula.

Dell is honored to be a recipient of the Forrester 2010 Voice of the Customer Award. The award recognizes initiatives that help companies dramatically improve how they collect, interpret and react to customer feedback. This year nearly 40 companies competed for the award, and Dell was one of three winners. We were chosen after being judged on five areas of customer focus: clarity of our approach, business value to the organization, positive impact on customer experience, innovation and potential for other companies to repeat the practice.

When, where and how are we listening?

Here are a few of the ways we listen and understand what you need: our customers' preferences:

• Social Media: In recent years, we’ve gained valuable feedback through customers on external sites such as Twitter and Facebook and through our own listening tool, IdeaStorm, where you can offer us suggestions on a wide array of categories across the business. To date, hundreds of ideas from the IdeaStorm community have been implemented.
• Customer Ratings and Reviews: Since 2006, more than 100,000 customer ratings and reviews have been shared — that’s an average of 150 reviews per day submitted to Dell.com based on direct feedback from you. We’ve also focused on celebrating customers who submit reviews through things like Customer Spotlights on Dell.com. You’ll hear directly from them about the kinds of things they use their systems for, what they like about it and see the configuration they use to get things done.
• Customer Advisory Panels (CAP Days): In June, Dell hosted its first ever Customer Advisory Panel event to listen in person at the Dell Headquarters in Round Rock, Texas. We invited some of our most vocal and influential customers in social media to spend a day with top Dell executives. Follow #DellCAP on Twitter to learn more about this event and to participate in the conversation.

Putting your feedback into action.

What good does listening do, if we don’t act on what you tell us? We have several new initiatives currently underway as a result of listening to your feedback. We’ve just launched our new @DellCares online Twitter support to help our social media savvy customers where it’s most convenient for them. We’re also piloting a 24/7 chat service in the United States and select countries where customers prefer chat over traditional phone service. Other projects include a redesign of support.dell.com and of the dell.com shopping experience. The scope and direction of these initiatives are shaped by what we hear from you.

We’re proud of the progress, but recognize we still have a long way to go. The Forrester Research Voice of the Customer Award demonstrates, thanks to you, that we’re headed in the right direction. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to more as we continue the journey.