Mike Snyder, the CEO of Vonage thinks the doomsday media predicting the demise of Vonage may be wrong, and they put out a press release saying that yesterday.
In PR parlance this is called "Crisis Management" but sound crisis management doesn't begin when the problem hits. It is practiced every day by being in regular conversation with the media that covers you. In the time Mike Snyder has been the "boss" at Vonage never once have I been offered a briefing with him, and at this point I don't want one for all it will be is a bunch of message point, rehearsed, lawyer vetted words. (As a matter of fact I haven't been offered a briefing by Vonage in years, and since Mitchell "Mad Dog" Slepian moved on is his career I've only received a few notes from their outsourced PR agency, and one of those missives was to drink wine in NYC when I was there, an offer I couldn't refuse.) To get through this crisis Snyder needs candor, honesty and transparency. Just saying that Vonage is going to fight won't cut the mustard. He and Vonage need to say what they are going to do to make sure their customers, all 2.2 million of them are not cut off, not simply say the expected, that being that they plan or fighting the decision.
Snyder said in the release that Vonage has been "preparing" for months for this mess with Verizon, yet he doesn't go on and say how. What's more nothing that has come out really attacks the court's decision or discounts the lack of merits in the case filed by, and won by Verizon.
Additionally, nothing preemptive is being done by Vonage. Everything is reactionary, and like Vonage's own technology, just not there. And that's not how you play the crisis management game.
Comments