What happens when corporations don’t listen to their customers? If you are an SEO or SMM you know what happens, they might cite an example like the movement at ReaderDock , which is urging someone – anyone to make an actual docking station for the Kindle Fire and Nook Color. The complaint is that there are a number of items of widely varying quality that are billing them self as a reader dock, but in actuality are little more the a charging station – if they can even call themselves that.
Users want more, users expect more, and consumers speak with their pocketbook. What happens though when people buy a product with the expectation that they will get proper accessories for it – and then wind up empty handed and wanting? They, like the people at Reader Dock, take to the web and start a petition then follow up with a heavy online social media campaign. They raise awareness of the issue, rally support and then confront whoever it is they feel needs a wakeup call.
It doesn’t always work for everyone that tries it, but most major companies keep an ear to the ground and respond fairly quickly to anything that seems to e upsetting the balance – or challenging the usefulness of their products. Ask your self this – if you found a decent product but found you could only perform half the functions it could perform only because there was not any appropriate peripheral support for it – would you buy it?
If you purchased it already, how happy would you be if you then learned of functions you should be able to perform but couldn’t for the reasons cited above – and you were already a couple hundred dollars lighter in the pocket? The odds are that were there a way to be heard and express your feelings, you would take it.
Consumer activism has taken a whole new spin and life on the web. Consumers are no longer content to just sit back and hop companies will provide them with useful products, consumers are coming out proactively and demanding them. Smart companies pay attention – it is the equivalent of free market research to a real degree.
In the case of the Kindle Fire Reader Dock movement, it is too soon to tell if it will be effective as it is still in its infancy, but there is a powerful social media campaign going on to back up the petition. It is worth watching, maybe even participating in if you are an e-reader user, to see how online movements like this work from an inside perspective. The worst thing that could happen when you form a movement like this online is you don’t get listened to – but even then you still learn and have an understanding of who does and does not listen to your voice.
Tags: kindle fire, nook tablet, online petition, readerdock, social media
