Service Outage Creates a Crisis

Jonathan Bernstein crisis management, Crisis Prevention, Crisis Response, public relations

In today’s tech-fueled world, service outages can cause a crisis faster than you can possibly imagine as disgruntled users turn to social media and other highly visible outlets to voice their frustrations. The makers of the BlackBerry, RIM, are no strangers to this issue, having suffered through several high profile outages before, but they rarely put much effort into crisis management for the situation, as a recent PC World article explained:

RIM doesn’t have a flawless track record for responding to outages. In 2007, it took the company a few days to explain a day-long outage, causing outrage among users. Crisis management consultants said RIM should’ve communicated early and often, even if the company didn’t fully grasp on what went wrong.

RIM has apparently learned something from their previous mistakes, as they kept the press updated during the most recent outage, but with only a belated public mea culpa.

The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/