Dreamhost is a US-based web host popular with a few people at DC. The bang-for-the-buck you get in terms of bandwidth, disk space, and account privileges seem almost are too good to be true! You see, over 2006 Dreamhost seemed to suffer an ongoing set of mini-disasters that affected websites, access to email, and generally any service that required a server connected to the internet.

Quite surprisingly, customers were treated to a long and detailed post outlining all the apparent issues in August of 2006. The blog post juxtaposed striking images of various real-world disasters with an extremely candid and informative update. The mix of honesty and humour appeared to create a winning PR strategy: 400-odd mainly positive comments including

It’s refreshing to see honesty and a company hold their hand up and say they made a mistake. Thank you.
Lets hope your building has the same honesty in admitting their faults.

As a consumer who generally takes a cynical view of business in my own personal dealings, I was quite surprised at how successfully the post worked at dissipating my anger, and in creating a stronger personal affinity with Dreamhost. However their recent New Dream Resolutions post has to go down in the books as the reference post for any businesses wanting to adopt an hilarious, tongue-in-cheek, outrageous tone in communications with customers. (It worked too. I actually renewed with them for another year just last week.)

Pre-internet and pre-weblog, this type of approach to communicating with customers would seem almost unthinkable, but now it’s quite clear that the informal tone, and direct relationship you can establish with customers mean different communication approaches can really reap rewards. Not just for business - for customers as well, who at the end of the day actually do appreciate honesty and direct communication. The end results are businesses that end up befriending customers, rather than alienating them, and that’s really the game plan isn’t it?

Glenfiddich (one of our clients) is one business that has successfully launched a weblog on whisky to better communicate with their customers. It’s a good example of how a business can tell their story and advertise their products in a non-intrusive way that creates an affinity with the brand. This type of communication really can work, and it seems inevitable that more and more clients will want to experiment with these new methods of communication.

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