Palm Gets It!

My friends at Demand Satisfaction! pointed out a cool story that I read about earlier on Friday. Very, very quickly it goes like this:

  1. Super popular blog Engadget posts some useful suggestions for Palm in an open letter. Like most letters of the type, some of the suggestions are very extreme and nearly impossible for a publicly traded company like Palm to do quickly. Others, though, are rather practical and very good things to listen to.
  2. Palm’s CEO, Ed Colligan, responds with a nice note.
  3. Palm gets lots of positive publicity.

Whoever suggested that Ed write that post (or ask Ed if they could write it) should get a bonus. That person should become the company’s media or PR director and get a big medal saying “I Get It.”

Palm’s gesture was not large (only 147 words – about the length of this post to this point) and not specific (nothing promised). However, it seems honest, to the point, and friendly. He thanked Engadget, he said he agreed with every, but not all points, and said the company was on track to make a lot of positive changes.

Palm’s response shows they “get” blogging. It is amazing to see the number of companies that seem to completely ignore the blogosphere. Engadget has a lot of readers and is a serious player. They are a big influencer with a lot of people. Basically, they are worth paying attention to. A lot of blogs are and companies should make an effort to find and monitor those blogs in their space.

I’m not a PR person, but I can appreciate this type of response. It is very similar in customer service:

  1. Respond quickly. (It took Palm about two days to get the post up after Engadget posted it – not that bad.)
  2. Respond sincerely.
  3. Be friendly and courteous.

Those are all good rules of thumb to keep in mind when interacting with others and dealing with any sort of situation (an open letter, a complaint, praise, etc.). Respond quickly and sincerely, and be friendly/courteous with your response. If you do that, people will probably be happy to read what you have to say.

By the way, I’ve owned several Palm PDAs and smartphones over the years and like them a lot! Palm is a good company.