As he stood there staring at the woman behind the counter, Tom Vander Well’s patience began running thin.

He bought his laptop from Best Buy with the extended service agreement just for this type of occasion. When the monitor went on the fritz and the card slot stopped working, he drove an hour from his home in Pella to the Best Buy Co. Inc. store in West Des Moines to get it checked out. A couple of weeks later, he made the drive again to pick up the computer. When he asked if the problem had been remedied, he was assured that he had nothing to worry about.

But his card slot still didn’t work, and naturally, he didn’t find this out until he got home.

Another hour drive later and there he was, standing before a woman who mumbled an insincere apology before telling him it would have to be sent to “Geek Squad City,” the Kentucky repair center of the Geek Squad, a Best Buy subsidiary that handles all the chain’s computer repair work, and that it would take at least two weeks to return.

“There was no acknowledgement of what I had been through,” Vander Well said. “I wasn’t furious, but I was definitely frustrated. If you blow it, you’re supposed to fix it.”

But Vander Well wasn’t your typical customer. He is a partner and vice president of c wenger group, an Urbandale-based consulting firm that specializes in helping clients measure and improve customer service. More important than that, he is a blogger.

“I went home and wrote about my experience in my blog,” he said. “I wasn’t foaming at the mouth. I was just using it as a great example of how you should acknowledge, apologize and resolve.”

He posted the blog at 11 a.m. At 4 p.m., he got a strange e-mail.

“It said it was Robert Stephens, founder and CEO of the Geek Squad,” Vander Well said. “I had a hard time believing it was actually him.”

But, as it turns out, the e-mail did come from Stephens personally. He said he saw Vander Well’s blog post and was on the case. A few hours later, Vander Well received a phone call from the director of operations at Geek Squad City, telling him that his computer had been pulled off the line and that it would be fixed immediately. And to avoid forcing Vander Well to make another hour-long drive to pick it up, the company would overnight it to him when it was finished.

“Sure enough, two days later I receive my laptop at my door as good as new,” he said. “Needless to say, they absolutely turned me into a loyal customer.”

And this, experts say, is why companies that don’t pay attention to what the blogosphere is saying about them do so at their peril.

“Companies who are ignoring blogs are keeping their heads in the sand,” said Drew McLellan, owner of McLellan Marketing Group. “Why would you not pay attention to what your customers are saying?”

With more and more blogs coming online, McLellan said, it is vitally important for companies to monitor them to see what the public is saying. Whether it is to defend the company from attack, correct misperceptions or simply see what consumers are interested in, paying attention to blogs has become something all businesses, large and small, must do, he said.

“This is going to be someone’s job in every company,” he said. “To keep an eye on what’s being said about them. In fact, that’s something every marketing and communication department should be doing today.”

Mike Sansone, a Clive-based business blog coach who also keeps a blog at www.ConverStations.com, said businesses that aren’t paying attention to blogs will find trouble.

“There are millions of blogs out there where customers could be talking about your company,” he said. “Whether what they are saying is good or bad, it’s better to engage with them.”

‘Mediacom sucks’

Every morning at 5:30, Scott Westerman wakes up, fixes himself a bowl of raisin bran and heads into his home office. Once there, Westerman, group vice president for marketing and customer care at Mediacom Communications Corp., begins surfing the Web trying to figure out what the world is saying about his company today.

“I check Technorati, Google and other blog searches for Mediacom and Sinclair,” he said. “I’ve even signed up for a Google alert for the phrase ‘Mediacom sucks.’ So that way, anytime someone types those two words anywhere on the Web, I get an e-mail.”

Westerman said many times he has e-mailed bloggers directly; trying to explain an issue or see what he can do to resolve a problem they might be having.

“I want to hear feedback, however I can get it,” he said. “Our company wants its customers to know that we are responsive to their concerns.”

Westerman said paying attention to blogs is important because statements made on them can quickly circle around the globe, whether they’re true or not. He points to what happened to the Kryptonite bike lock when someone put a video online showing how to open it with a Bic pen. The manufacturer pretty much ignored the viral spread of this message, he said, and as a result, lost significant revenue as the lock became synonymous with insecurity.

And with his company in the middle of well-publicized negotiations with Sinclair Broadcasting Group over rights to retransmit Sinclair’s 22 TV stations, he knows there will be a lot of misinformation that he must address. Westerman said he shares information with bloggers about how to get free antennas, locations of Mediacom-sponsored pro football playoff viewing parties and information on how they can share their opinions with Congress and the Iowa Legislature.

“We live in a world where most people don’t think big companies are listening,” he said. “So when I can help out a customer personally, it really makes a huge impact on that customer.”

Keeping perspective

Sansone said it’s silly for companies not to pay attention to blogs, because the process is so easy.

“There are sites out there that allow you to search blogs,” he said. “It couldn’t be any easier or inexpensive. And unless you’re Wells Fargo or Principal, you aren’t going to have thousands of people writing about your company every day. Your customers are talking. Go listen to them.”

Sansone said damage control isn’t the only positive aspect of blog monitoring. He said many businesses could use the practice to find new customers.

“If I’m a tow truck driver and I see a car stranded on the side of the road, I’m pulling over,” he said. “If I’m in real estate, I’m searching blogs for the phrase ‘looking for a home in Iowa.’ Damage control is just a small piece of what is possible. It’s like having a free focus group.”

Paul Schlueter, vice president of research and interactive marketing for Flynn Wright, said the people who blog or post on message boards are usually hyper-involved with their interests. Because of this, they tend to be the early adopters of any product, making them a good group to look at when searching for what might be on the horizon.

“But you have to be careful,” he said. “It’s important to pay attention to the Web, but it’s more important to keep it in perspective.”

Because of the way the Web allows for anonymous commentary from blog posters, Schlueter said, listening to this hyper-involved group could lead your company in the wrong direction.

“I never like to think of anything as the next big thing,” he said. “This is a valuable tool, but it should be seen as just another form of communication.”

McLellan agrees that companies must maintain perspective.

“This is nothing all that new,” he said. “It’s just another tool in the tool box.”

Vander Well said the fear is that some people will create a blog just to see what they can squeeze out of a company.

“They will rant and rave just to see if they can get a reaction,” he said. “That is always going to be a danger as this technology becomes more popular. But the benefit far outweighs the downsides.”

Epilogue

After his laptop was returned, Vander Well immediately posted on his blog about what had happened. He told of how he had heard from the company CEO, how the Geek Squad had not only fixed his computer but had overnighted it to him and how the attention he received had saved the day in his mind.

“I sang their praises, which is exactly why you’re supposed to treat customers this way,” he said. “It was great word-of-mouth advertising for them.”

After he posted the story, his readership quadrupled. Apparently, he said, links to his blog had made it to several forums, spreading the story around the Internet.

He also received several follow-up calls from the company to make sure he was satisfied with the work it had done. Then, a few weeks later, another box showed up on his doorstep. It contained what Vander Well calls “the frosting on the cake.”

“I got a Geek Squad T-shirt, key chain and some other small tchotchkes,” he said. “Now I’m an honorary geek, and a raving fan.”