Yes that would be the short term view of a incompetent manager. A smart manager, taking a long term value approach to his business would realize that these things tend to increase in scale. A particular group of 100-500 angry customers, only for this SKU is likely to be replicated on a similar scale on a number of other SKU´s. Before you know it you have a few thousand angry individuals who will continue to badmouth Dell for the next few years to come and spread their message of shopping elsewhere.

Unfortunately I feel that many Americans tend to not be able to look further ahead then to the end of the current day. This seems to be preached in all schools business here as well as to be a general mood in society. So don´t get your hopes up.