(Direct) Type the phrase “Dell hell” on Google and the world’s most popular search engine returns more than 2.4 million results. Type “Dell sucks” and almost 1.3 million results come back.

Dude, Dell has a problem.

The computer marketing giant has taken a serious battering, in large part because of a summer-long rant on a journalist’s personal blog. Jeff Jarvis began writing on BuzzMachine in June about his fruitless efforts to get Dell to fix his malfunctioning computer, a quest he claims included an infuriating string of unanswered or improperly handled e-mails and phone calls.

“The only reason I put this online is I wanted to join in the ‘sucks index,’” Jarvis said in an interview. “If you put any brand followed by the word ‘sucks’ in Google, you get the real consumers’ reports.”

In an open letter to Dell, Jarvis wrote: “Your product was a lemon, and your customer service was appalling.…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.”

The following day the letter was the third most linked-to post in the blogosphere, according to Web search and navigation consultancy Intelliseek, Cincinnati.

Jarvis finally did receive a refund for his defective machine and a call from Dell public relations in late August, but “nothing new came out of the call,” he wrote. And on Aug. 26, Jarvis claimed he got a call from Dell that started out like a customer service call, but turned out to be a follow-up telemarketing pitch to sell him broadband.

“Dell has become worse than a door-to-door salesman,” Jarvis wrote. “No pride. No shame. No value. No brand. As I said when all this started: Dell sucks.”

This story is old news in the blogosphere. For Dell, however, its ramifications probably haven’t even begun to emerge.

It’s hard to imagine that any consumer doing the slightest amount of online research for their next computer purchase won’t stumble across the negative comments about Dell (with the holiday season approaching). And the Internet is littered with posts indicating that Jarvis is far from alone. “I spent several hours on the phone speaking to Dell tech support in India, without results,” said one from the IT consultancy Wintellect. “One of the more memorable conversations went like this: ‘Begin by turning off all the LEDs on your keyboard.’ ‘My keyboard doesn’t have any LEDs.’ Pause. ‘You must turn off the LEDs on your keyboard.’ ‘My keyboard doesn’t have any LEDs.’ Longer pause. ‘I can’t help you if you don’t turn off the LEDs.’”

In response to the Jarvis saga, Dell reportedly added staff and changed its policy for dealing with blogs. Now, when a Dell public relations representative finds personally identifiable information attached to an online complaint, the rep forwards the complaint to customer service for personal follow-up.

But marketing experts contend that Dell must go much further to burnish its tattered image.

The firm is “past the point of no return,” wrote Steve Rubel, vice president of client services for public relations firm CooperKatz & Co. of New York, on his blog Micro Persuasion. Among other things, Dell should host a blog per day, Rubel continued.

“Fly all the key influencers who are writing about your service issues to Round Rock (Dell’s headquarters) to meet with your quality-assurance team and perhaps even [Dell founder] Michael [Dell] himself,” he added. “Let the bloggers see firsthand all the steps you’re taking to improve our experience with your products.”

Rubel also contended that blog-monitoring should become a standard feature of CRM software.

According to a just-released white paper from Intelliseek, marketers can avoid Dell’s fate by fostering employee blogs.

“When the company has good news, customers will turn to the bloggers they already trust for interpretation,” the paper said. “When there is bad news, nothing can better aid crisis management than already having trusting relationships with customers.”

But Intelliseek warned that for any blog to be credible, it must be real.

“Companies must have the fortitude to stomach their own employees’ opinions about the company’s products or services, whether those opinions are negative or respectful,” the white paper said. “If that fortitude can be mustered, the results are handsome.”

For example, negative posts from Microsoft employee Robert Scoble in 2004 on his Scobleizer blog about the firm’s widely panned MSN Spaces blog-hosting product shifted opinion in Microsoft’s favor. Readers were impressed with Scoble’s candor, according to Intelliseek’s study.

Moreover, the report noted, blogs can cut down on call center loads because customers with problems may turn to a trusted blogger before picking up the phone: “Employee blogs can serve as a lifeline to customers.”

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