The release of Snow Leopard, the latest incarnation of Apple’s operating system, caught Swedish mobile broadband operators napping last week.
I wasn’t the only one to upgrade to Snow Leopard and suddenly discover that my mobile modem was no longer compatible with OS X. Every attemtp to use it resulted in kernel panics and a crashed MacBook Pro. This wasn’t exactly what I needed when I was trying to work on site at a customer’s in central Stockholm on Friday.
Silence is Not a Good Communication Strategy
When I finally managed to get on to Telenor’s website to check the situation thanks to a networked PC at my client’s, I was dismayed to discover there was no announcement from my mobile broadband provider Telenor regarding OS 10.6.
A Google search , however, revealed there were stacks of upset Swedish Mac users frequenting online forums in desperate search of information as to why they couldn’t get their mobile broadband to work since upgrading.
In the desperate hope of a solution I wandered into a Telenor store at Västermalm gallerian to see if they had any news on what was happening but the only response I got was a rather worrying: “What’s OS X?”
A phone call to Telenor’s support wasn’t much use either. The guy I spoke to hadn’t heard of Snow Leopard and was completely unaware of the problems, despite the growing noise online about compatability.
His best gambit was to reassure me that an update would be on its way just as soon as the tech people were aware of the problem.
“Keep an eye on our homepage,” he urged me. “You’ll get all the answers you need there.”
Three days later there’s still no update on Telenor.se regarding Snow Leopard. The Swedish Mac community is still grumbling online and my mobile broadband still isn’t working, making work just that little bit more difficult this week.
The Moral of the Story?
- Respond in public when there’s a crisis.
- Remember: silence is not an option; it only encourages your customers to speculate about just how incompetent you really are.
- Monitor your brand on Twitter — it was apparent the Swedish Mac community knew their were problems before the company did.
- Respond with something positive even if you’re cuaght unawares — e.g. I’d probably feel slightly better about the situation is Telenor waved this month’s fee in the light of their failure to provide service
Communication strategy isn’t just about marketing your message or learning how to reach new customers. It’s also about knowing how to communicate when things go wrong or crises occur.
Apple’s Snow Leopard threw Telenor, Telia and 3 a curve ball. For the time-being they seem to have fumbled it.
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