A blog is great for crisis management
If something goes wrong with the service your company provides don’t hide or stay silent. Follow Basecamp’s lead and talk to your community.
Basecamp, who I actually recommend to a lot of customers, were having major problems with their servers yesterday.
Reports started appearing on Twitter that the service was down and the company quickly announced it was having server trouble.
As soon as things were sorted 37Signals, who run Basecamp, posted a great blog post about the situation. In a friendly tone, that didn’t come across as spun or PR blurb, they:
- apologised
- described what happened.
- stated that it wouldn’t happen again.
Because they communicated with their audience in such a pleasant, informative way I’m sure the incident won’t have done too much damage to their use base. After all, we all have bad days. Sometimes the unexpected really does occur.
Don’t Keep Quiet in a Crisis
The whole Basecamp down incident reminded me just how great a blog can be for crisis management. It gets your message out to your community.
Microblog services like Tumblr, Twitter and even Facebook’s Wall can have the same effect if you have a community of followers. That’s why it’s important to build a community.
What About You?
How would you get your message out to your audience if your business went down right now?
Do you have a communication channels in place?
Could you use the same kind of friendly rhetoric as 37 Signals?
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My brother’s employer went through the same thing somewhat. They had this promotional campaign running at the local Walmart which they were unable to track and follow up on, and ended up getting a lot of heat from the people involved. I recommended tweeting about it to him, and he’s been at it ever since!