How blogs are affecting customer service

Jeff Jarvis over at Buzz Machine post a letter to Dell on his blog explaining why he won't buy from them again. He points out that when a negative story is posted on a blog, others will chime in with comments and it can snowball rather quickly:

"But you didn’t just lose three PC sales and me as a customer. Today, when you lose a customer, you don’t lose just that customer, you risk losing that customer’s friends. And thanks to the internet and blogs and consumer rate-and-review services, your customers have lots and lots of friends all around the world."

Blogs and news aggregators are here to stay. They will revolutionize the way one experiences the web. It is no longer folks sitting around in their pajamas journaling on the web; blogs are becoming mainstream. And companies better start paying attention to what blogs are saying about them.