If You're Not Interested Don't Listen

Earlier today I came across an article on Modern Marketing entitled, "If You're Not Interested Don't Listen." The article explains how Dell recently launched IdeaStorm, a site designed to collect ideas and views from the public. Then a funny thing happened, 135,000 people all suggested that pre-installed Linux or OpenOffice machines would be a great perk. Dell initally agreed, however, once the company looked into it they realised it wasn't feasible and had to ignore all of the requests. In a statement, Dell stated that it wouldn't be able to meet the demands because customers want too many variants.

Although I feel this was initially a great idea from Dell I do believe they screwed up by saying they would oblige to requests before they actually looked into the situation. I feel Dell is doing a good thing by reaching out to its customers and taking their suggestions but they should also make it known that not all requests are feasible. I hope that Dell continues with their 'suggestion box' because I feel it could definitely be a very strong and effective marketing tool.