This the age of the online world. Kodak has a web presence, and it can be using this communication mode to connect with consumers in the way it might hope with its toll free numbers . . . that is, the way it would in the 1980s.
By merely having a web site, this is not sufficient. Information architecture is pivotal here in order to make it possible for it to be a useful tool for both company and consumer. "Hunting" for a resource (like an email address, a department, a product line) should be immediate, unambiguous to locate, and in no way seemingly hidden from reach without being trained for library information science acrobatics (I happen to love librarians, but even they would say much the same thing here).
As it is, Kodak lacks even this, much less a direct consumer liaison known by name. This is basically a senseless falling upon one's own sword. And what's sad about it is it's not terribly honourable, either. From the persistently repeated sounds of it, the lack of a fertile, inventive mind at the executive level seems to be a big albatross in Rochester. Operating as if brand equity alone will carry the company through the tough times is not only reckless to organization and shareholders, but also needlessly arrogant. And that does trickle down to personnel who either get stuck in frustration of disempowerment from above and restive consumers outside, or they adopt the executive tone and operate aloof and dismissive themselves. Either way, the social chemistry of the enterprise fails to benefit.
And as you indicate, PE, I am aware at least with one personal anecdote of an old friend I used to know in Rochester (when I once actually lived there, Culver/Harvard reprayzint!) who went to Eastman Kodak to work with a digital optics group. He, a Ph.D. in optics, along with his 12 or so colleagues, worked under a senior optics expert who had been with the company much longer. Then his supervisor was wooed to competitor Seagate. Within months of that departure, at least seven from that group of 12 migrated to the Midwestern U.S. to work under that supervisor at Seagate, leaving Kodak's research division in that area a functional vacuum. So I raise this because I'm familiarized with the brain drain at Kodak. Nevertheless, from an operational and executive position, these kinds of out-migrations should be clarion calls, not a murmur of bad news. This particular story, incidentally, didn't recently happen, either, but rather in 1996-97. The brain drain is nothing new.
This tack is a matter of EK structural assessment. It is hardly a "bashing". And believe me, I know "bashing" when I see it. It's pretty bloody and violent, and none of you would want to be there to watch it happen.