Angie McKaig - E-Business Consultant and Entrepreneur
final review: crisis management2010.03.02
Last week I called blogTO to task for how it handled a several-week-long virus infestation issue (and also posted a slightly more hopeful followup).
It's had a few days so far to shake out from the latest infection, and here's my final review:
GOOD: The company responded more promptly than last time. They took the web site down for longer. They're continuing to talk to a security expert and hopefully will have a better security plan going forward.
BAD: It still took far too long. Most folks know that the MINUTE you suspect your computer is infected with a virus, you unplug from the Internet and scan and fix the computer. And yet it still took the better part of two days and some really-over-the-top reader intervention to convince them.
WORSE: Most people don't know about these problems or how they've been handled, because they've once again chosen to provide VERY little additional information, in a hidden post made several days ago and are continuing to post (what few updates they've put up there) in the comments. Translation: hundreds or thousands of their visitors may be infected and have NO idea that they are, nor where they got it from.
EPIC FAIL: They have not responded to their readership in a manner that will ensure minimum damage to their reputation but instead have handled it in a way that trashes their reputation and trustworthiness with readers and that, frankly, I'd expect of a slow moving organization (TTC anyone?) rather than a lean, supposedly "up to the minute and BETTER than traditional media" company.
The way I see it, they'll lose readership. Probably a significant percentage. The only reason they might not lose as much? Because of how few readers might actually stumble upon their hidden and nearly invisble virus posts. Good for them, you might say, protecting their readership, but it's also underhanded and unethical. And that is no way to run a business.
The most ironic part of all of this is that it is their handling of the situation - i.e. their communication with their readers, their lack of professionalism in alerting their readers, advising their readers, and otherwise dealing with the problem from a reputation management standpoint - that has so enraged their readers. With better communication and a more user-friendly handling of the situation, they'd have lost far fewer readers. When you botch up a communications job this badly, you teach your readers that you don't value them.
For myself, I've now removed the site from my feed reader and don't intend to return any time soon. Local news is good and vital and very important, but their site is not the only game in town; perhaps my readership will be more highly valued elsewhere. Trying to help this company try to be the company I need it to be is just too hard; voting with my feet, in the end, is the only power left to me.
Today's launch of blogTO's new redesign eliminated the near-invisible "Update to the virus situation" link. Also, the "we're not infected--it's your cache!" post is still MIA, which is too bad, since the comments outlined what people were doing to identify and remove the malware, and which files, browsers, and OS versions were being infected. I assume they removed this post not to centralize discussion as they claim, but to try and eliminate the embarrassment of saying the site was clean again when it wasn't and blaming the readers for the warnings.
I highly doubt many people saw the update post over the low-traffic weekend anyway, which was promptly pushed off the front page instead of being sticky and conspicuous at the top like it should have been.
Marc, I completely agree. A friend sent me the link this morning and I was horrified to see that there was now NO mention of the problems anywhere on the site - despite the owners' assurances that, in fact, the redesign would make it easier to notify users of these things on an ongoing basis.
I feel the priorities of the site are now fully skewed in the wrong direction - i.e. away from their readers, who didn't ask for a redesign but indeed have received very little of what they HAVE been asking for.
It's tough sometimes for companies to remember that they are there to serve their customer, not to blindly fulfill their own agendas and ignore the requests and real needs of the people who give their company its purpose, its revenue and its value.
Clearly, that's the direction that blogTO seems to be on. It's why I'm no longer reading the site, and will be urging others to follow my lead.
Not only that, but if you search for "virus" or even "An Update to the Virus Situation" (the name of the post) in the blogTO search bar, the article doesn't even come up in the search results.
Sorry we lost your as a reader Angie. Hopefully we can continue to improve and win back your trust sometime in the future.