Informal Communication

In the article , this employee Bob gets in trouble for communicating with customers outside of the normal means of contact. Even though he was helping customers, and not giving away trade secrets, he was put under a red flag and treated in not the nicest of ways. I think this is completely irresponsible of a company. Many products are complex, where customers with different levels of understanding may be interested. Other customers may have questions that cannot directly be answered by a company officially. I find this alot on my Car forums that i visit. For a supercharger kit for example, a potential client may ask the community about a particular shop or product, and get valuable feedback. If they were to give negative feedback on a product, should that company not take steps to refute the bad mouthing they are receiving. Wouldn't releasing a product through a medium where the level of understanding is higher have a trickle down effect to less knowledgeable consumers?