User Forums Help Diffuse Customer Complaints

From pizza cutters to dev kits, how do some companies deal with unsatisfied customers?

Jennifer Roy, contributing editor -- Design News, March 9, 2010

Design News reader Chuck Martin didn't think anything of it when he loaded his expensive new pizza cutter in the dishwasher, but was surprised by the way it came out. After all, the manufacturer, Dexter-Russell Inc., did not put a "not dishwasher safe" warning on the cutter's heavy cast aluminum handle.

So, who is to blame for the corroded mess? Should Martin, who bought the high-end tool at Williams-Sonoma, have known better or should the manufacturer replace the expensive kitchen tool because it did not provide a warning?

This case, which was first featured in our Made By Monkeys blog, got me thinking – how do companies respond to complaints and negative online reviews about their products and what actions do they take as a result?

Jim Bellerose, Dexter-Russell's marketing manager, says he "stumbled upon" our blog and responded to Martin directly via e-mail.

"We will respond to it when we see it," Bellerose says. "If (Martin) would have called us, this would have been taken care of immediately, without all the ranting and raving. It's better if you can catch it before it blows up."

He says Martin, who admitted to "being angry, too harsh and flying off the handle," received a new, albeit different, pizza cutter from the company, 99 percent of whose business comes from food service suppliers. "Williams-Sonoma is kind of an aberration for us," Bellerose says. "Most of the stuff we sell is mainly into food service. They should know that you don't put it in the dishwasher."

He says the pizza cutter being sold at Williams-Sonoma likely came out of a "bucket" and did not include care instructions, though Martin's complaints about the product are the first he's heard.

Dexter-Russell, Bellerose says, is expected to have a formal program for monitoring or scanning blogs for its product names within a month. "We'll know when our product names pop up and we'll scan blogs," he says. "When Dexter appears, we'll know and we'll address the problem. When something comes up, we'll throw our two cents in."

Eric Lawson, Microchip Technologies' public relations manager, says Microchip deals with complaints, criticisms and questions mainly through the company's user forum.

"We have experts who monitor these forum threads on a regular basis, and they jump in to help," he says. "It's users talking to each other about the problems they are having. Then, a (clearly identified, in some cases by a snowman) Microchip person jumps in to help."

Each forum is related to a different product line, Lawson says. "We do have a number of people who are monitoring the forum. This is just one of the tools we have." He says Microchip also has an online help ticket system, which is available for around-the-world support. "There is a whole host of different avenues where we help customers solve problems."

One recent problem cited by Lawson came via an Australian video blogger – EEVblog – who was "complaining in a prominent way." The blogger was not happy with changes made to a newer version of Microchip's PICkit, saying, among other things, that the PICkit 3 "sucks" and is "made by idiots."

"He really liked the PICkit 2 and was a fan of our PIC microcontrollers," Lawson says. But when PICkit 3 hit the market, it sent the blogger into a 10-minute frenzy of complaints about the dev tool.

So, how did Microchip deal with the disapproving blogger? Did they call their attorneys and implement an immediate cease and desist order? They probably could have, but instead, gave the man a taste of his own medicine.

"We decided to do a video response of our own," Lawson says. "It was pretty self-deprecating. Then, (the blogger) spoke to our CEO on the phone and he was happy with our response. I think it was a pretty positive reaction all the way around. We worked on some of his suggestions and the blogger also stood corrected on some points."

"If you watch his rant, you'll probably laugh at the way he presented it," says Lawson, who also said the blogger posted a second video following Microchip's.