Never waste a crisis: Optus’ missed opportunity over $100m fine

CLARIFICATION: It has come to my attention that Optus CEO, Stephen Rue, did publish video apologies, for instance, on the Optus LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Trouble is, if you search for them, they’re not ranking, and during my research, I couldn’t find them. I suspect customers would have the same issue. The Optus website, their hub for communications, also has no video. It does have the kind of apology that I don’t believe satisfies a cynical and distrustful public. You be the judge. The LinkedIn video can be viewed here.

I think Optus missed a great opportunity to reach staff and customers following the $100 million fine for unconscionable conduct selling products to vulnerable customers.

It’s a newsworthy amount, double what Telstra received in 2021 for similar bad behaviour.

There is a point, early in resolving an issue like this, when there is a strategic decision to be made – “Are we better off in or out of the story?”

That is the decision, or a variation of it, that Optus CEO Stephen Rue would have faced. It looks like he chose ‘out’ – do only what we need to do to react to journalists’ queries. In that scenario, an apology is drafted, with a reactive strategy, well ahead of time, because everyone in the comms team knows the fine and the publicity is coming.

That is completely legitimate comms. I call it old-school damage control. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but it looks like it.

Stephen Rue’s LinkedIn page

It’s also a recipe for failure in an increasingly sceptical world, with cynical staff and consumers and a toxic social media.

There is another approach, and that is where a CEO says, “I want all my staff and all our customers, but especially my staff, to know that what Optus did to those people is not who I am and not what I want Optus to be! It is not what the ‘Yes’ campaign is about, which is Optus doing things differently and going that extra step to support our customers!”

To get that message out, which is a culture-changing opportunity, means shouting it from the rooftops to whoever can hear, wherever they are. Hence, the hackneyed phrase, ‘A crisis is an opportunity.’

And to get cut-through, it needs to be shouted convincingly and repeatedly on every channel, because staff and customers are following the news in a fragmented world on Tiktok, Youtube, Reddit, and yes, on the shrinking legacy media.

And it needs to be shouted for as long as people will listen, in print, audio and video, because as any politician and CEO knows, it’s really hard to make a message stick, and repetition=penetration=impact.

There’s more.

The most important part of that message is, traditionally, of course, the meat-n’-potatoes incident message: “Sorry. We will do what is needed to ensure that never happens again.” Ho hum. Heard it hundreds, no, possibly thousands of times.

The author Peter Wilkinson

Actually, the most important part of the message conveys the leader’s personal commitment, which is emotional. It’s really hard to get a person’s love for a company or a purpose across to a mass audience. It takes years of repetition of ‘This is a person I am, a deeply caring person who really believes in making Australia a better place. It’s why I come to work every day. If you have a complaint about Optus, call us! The customer-support lines are open! We really do want to hear about it, and we want to help!”

It’s an emotional response, and, as anyone who’s read anything about behavioural psychology knows, deeply held emotion is what gets cut through.

Now, Stephen Rue may be that kind of person, I don’t know, and getting that message out is really hard. But seizing a newsworthy opportunity like the $100m fine, in the new world of fragmented markets, shouldn’t be missed, in my opinion.

Peter Wilkinson is chair of Wilkinson Butler and a crisis communications expert.