Omnitracs, a technology company that provides innovative software and SaaS fleet management solutions to trucks, recently suffered from connectivity issues that directly affected their electronic logging devices (ELDs). As a result, drivers were required to use paper logs to record compliance with hours-of-service regulations. This practice hasn’t been used in nearly two years since the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration now requires fleets to digitally monitor hours-of-service.
CEO Ray Greer quickly put out a statement on the company website announcing the initial outage and continued to post subsequent updates until the issue was resolved four days later.
CEO and crisis expert Andy Gilman was quoted on Omnitracs’ crisis response in the article, “Connectivity restored to 99.9% of Omnitracs ELDs.”
“The CEO’s blog appears to be a sincere effort to explain to customers and other stakeholders the status of the outage and what the company is doing to fix the problem,” said Andy Gilman, president and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based CommCore Consulting Group. “It’s an example of the buck stops here philosophy.”
Gilman, who has worked with scores of companies on corporate and product crises, said the frequent updates with Greer as the spokesperson allowed Omnitracs to control much of the narrative while the problem was being addressed…
“The level of specificity in the blog shows that the company is focused on the issues vs. bland platitudes,” Gilman told FreightWaves. “This goes a long way in convincing customers that the issue is being addressed.”