The messaging industry (as it likes to be called) has an interesting public-relations dilemma on its hands.
When the Galaxy 4 satellite lost contact with earth, millions of paging customers lost service. No matter how remote the possibility that so many paging users will lose service again, people will remember that their reliable service, was in fact, not so reliable for a time.
The paging carriers that did not lose service can bask in the warm fuzzy feelings their customers have for them. (Hey, I’ve still got service. My carrier is great!) If I ran the PR department for an unaffected paging carrier, fliers explaining why we are so reliable would be sent with the next bill.
But what about the companies that lost service?
Do you issue a statement that you regret what happened and promise that you are working to make sure it won’t happen again? Do you let sleeping dogs lie and ignore the whole fiasco? Do you issue refunds to everyone or just those who complain?
Do you take out a full-page ad in two national newspapers like MobileComm did, spinning the positive side of the incident? Were those ads an attempt by MobileComm to gain customers unhappy enough to churn?
In one of my PR classes in college, we had to study how Tylenol won back the nation’s trust after several people in Illinois died from taking poisoned Extra-Strength Tylenol in 1982. (Tylenol did not hold a press conference to say “Now you know the importance of acetaminophen.”)
Instead, the company pulled its product off the shelf, launched a campaign to convey its message to the nation and came out with tamper-proof packaging. More people died from tainted Tylenol in 1986. Even though none of this was Tylenol’s fault, it’s not too difficult to imagine Johnson & Johnson discontinuing the product-or at least changing the name-in the face of such enormous negative press. But Tylenol is still a successful brand, and Johnson & Johnson still runs advertisements saying it is trusted by hospitals.
This paging “disaster” gives the messaging industry ample opportunity to sell its best customers on the benefits of two-way networks.
It also opens up opportunities for unsatisfied customers to churn to another paging carrier, a cellular or PCS operator, or, heaven forbid, for a paging user to discover he can get along without the device.
