If Unilever can get blogging, so can Sainsbury's

Remember Johnnie and I posted a lot about how Sainsbury's could / should monitor the blogosphere, particularly food blogs, and respond with email, comments and trackbacks to what is being said about the supermarket? I even drafted a comment for them, suggesting that Sainsbury's should send a crate of wine to a Nottingham diner, who couldn't find dinner party ingredients on Sainsbury's shelves.

It seems Unilever use that very strategy. When Dan Entin of 2 Percent Nation couldn't find his favourite deodorant, he blogged about it. Unilever responded... with information and a case of the missing product. Dan is now a customer for life, but, more importantly for Unilever, he is spreading the word.

I picked this up via Steve Rubel at MicroPersuasion, who retells Dan's story and cannily observes:

Unilever - a huge company with lots of to worry about - took the time to respond to Dan directly via email...

I believe we just witnessed the future of customer service. One day CRM systems will bolt in blog monitoring functionality so these posts automatically get funneled to the right place. For now, they need to be handled onesie twosie - but handled nonetheless. Kudos to Unilever.