Example of information sharing & exchange: Bad experience with fridge

Here's a personal example of how consumers can use blogs to voice their frustration/ opinions over certain products or services:

Ariston Fridges
So I'm frustrated from the entire chain of events. Could Ariston have prevented it? I don't know. Maybe a better hinge design. Maybe some Ariston employee will do a Google or Technorati and find my blog piece. Maybe they will do something about the design.

But they sure won't hear it from me direct via their formal feedback channel (if any). Why should I when I'm not going to try my luck with another Ariston fridge again, no matter how good it looks.

This was a real example that happened to me and my wife -- our fridge went kaput and we had a series of negative experiences as a result. I decided to blog about it because the frustration was very real.

How would blogging about it help?
Well the fridge didn't recover by itself. I doubt if Ariston will replace my fridge for free just because I blogged about it. But it sure helped me ease some sense of frustration, and I'm certainly sharing information to people who care to read it. Sure it's full of bias and presents only my side of the story. But that's what "word of mouth" is about, isn't it?

If Ariston had employees who know how to seek out blogs that mention it's products and services, then they might be able to do something about it. They might even want to contact me to try and convert me back to a customer.

And consider this -- if you, the consumer, was considering buying a fridge, would you consider buying the same model that I had? What thoughts went through you as you read the post?