Disaster Handling 010

• By: Dave Burr
• On: 03/09/2010 14:47:41
• In: Customer Retention
• Comments:

Why 010? This company did just the opposite of what 101 graduates would do and they make a GREAT case study!!

I was looking at the Groundroll.com site and noticing that we really hadn't posted a Customer Retention article in a while, and for me, now is the time to write about it, because a real-llife drama is unfolding within one of our businesses.

Our worldwide company that is our gateway for SMS (text) messaging was, well, "hammered" by wireless carriers in the United States because their system had been used by some evil-doer(s) to broadcast unsolicited text messages that were contrary to carrier guidelines. They were shut down by all U.S wireless companies, unable to provide a gateway to send SMS to the anyone. And I mean, this is big. These people are undoubtedly one of the largest in the world at this and we had used them for a long time. All of their customers, including us, and OUR customers(!), immediately lost the ability to do text messaging, whether it be for emergencies or general information. We were sent a vaguely-worded e-mail from the company that included the words "no ETA" (for a resolution). Over the next few days, you could go to their web site and read "still no ETA", "in the coming days, we will provide more information", "some service has been restored, yours might not be"...nothing that stated anything relating to a timeline. No specific information about what was happening...NOTHING onto which their customers can grasp.

Obviously, for a company like ours that does time-sensitive messaging, it is just plain irresponsible to operate on this sort of non-information. We are putting our own business at risk as well as creating possible difficult situations for our customers who trust us. We put a backup system in place within 24 hours so that nobody would be dead in the water. Then we tried to go back to our supplier, and undoubtedly became one of their bigger pests (albeit always constructively), if for no other reason because I felt that their handling of this was unconscionable. No news. I think once, we got a "link" to a "letter from the President" which talked about "the difficult situation."

After several days of nothing, the handwriting was on the wall - we needed to develop a new supplier, with all the cost, and managerial and technical oversight, that will entail.

I am floored that this company handled this disaster this way. We are sure that they are not inclined to simply give up the U.S market and are actively reactivating their relationships with U.S. carriers, and developing new policies as required by carriers, and that involves lots of entities, and a lot of time and effort. Should some of that have been done before? Probably. But that isn't the point of this writing.

This company should be HYPERcommunicating with customers during this period. If it happened to us, we would hire a call center to call every customer and have dialogue with them, even if that meant a million phone calls. EVERY one of their customers who has no idea what is going on will leave. What choice do these customers have in the face of total uncertainty? Just be "dragged down", right out of business?

Call or e-mail customers constantly. Tell them what's happening. Even if will take three weeks to get back up and running, tell them that. I feel that the reason why this company is not communicating is that "we don't have any concrete answers", or "people will not like the ETA we give them". This thinking is completely flawed. I also think that they believe that during this time, they actually beleive that if they don't hear from customers complaining and asking what is going on, things might not turn out too badly. Maybe they are not noticing. They're noticing. They are getting the boilerplate e-mails and reading the worthless notices on the web site. So any silence this company experiences is the very LOUD sound of customers defecting. The few that they DO hear from in loud fashion are NOT the ones they need to be worrying about. Everything for them is 010, not 101.

I smell an HBR article here, even if I have to write it and submit it myself.