Now that former CEO Richard Smith has stepped aside, interim CEO Paulino de Rego Barros Jr. would like a clean slate. Previous apologies for exposing millions of consumers’ data to hackers have been risible and ineffective.
The new CEO is trying to apologize again—this time putting his company’s money where his mouth is.
"On behalf of Equifax, I want to express my sincere and total apology," Barros wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.
"By Jan. 31, Equifax will offer a new service allowing all consumers the option of controlling access to their personal credit data. The service we are developing will let consumers easily lock and unlock access to their Equifax credit files. You will be able to do this at will. It will be reliable, safe and simple. Most significantly, the service will be offered free, for life."
Barros acknowledged Equifax’s poor crisis response immediately following the data breach.
“We were hacked. That's the simple fact. But we compounded the problem with insufficient support for consumers. Our website did not function as it should have, and our call center couldn't manage the volume of calls we received," [Barros] wrote. "Answers to key consumer questions were too often delayed, incomplete or both. We know it's our job to earn back your trust.”
The new leader refrained from mentioning some of the more colossal failures of recent weeks.
Barros, who has only been on the job for a couple of days, didn't mention other missteps. For example, Equifax chose to post information about the breach at equifaxsecurity2017.com instead of on equifax.com. […] At one point an Equifax representative on Twitter directed customers to visit a fake version of the site—securityequifax2017.com.
The op-ed has remained behind The Wall Street Journal’s online paywall, prompting some to see this latest apology as more of the same.
"On Behalf of Equifax, I’m Sorry" -- a pay-walled apology to the people who can afford a subscription to the WSJ https://t.co/kGMW0JkOet
— Kashmir Hill (@kashhill) September 28, 2017
Oh, look, real apology! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Now take it out from behind
— MLT•Tanaka (@mlttanaka) September 28, 2017
WSJ’s paywall. 🤦🏽♀️😡 https://t.co/kxWBt074Ff
Regardless of leadership, Equifax faces big obstacles to regaining public trust.
In a new survey from Lendedu, consumer complaints against the beleaguered company are up by 32 percent, and 84 percent of Americans have heard of the Equifax cyber breach.
The importance of this apology is underscored by the number of respondents who remain unsure about joining a class-action lawsuit.
Over half of respondents thought Equifax should lose its ability to act as a credit bureau, and 83 percent agreed that lawmakers should enact stricter consumer protections.
Whether the company’s offer of lifetime credit protection can change its fortunes, it seems likely that the credit monitoring industry will see new regulations and heightened scrutiny. Here are some takeaways from Equifax’s latest apology:
1. Make sure everyone can read your post.
This apology is a step in the right direction, but keeping the written document behind a paywall creates the illusion that the apology is intended for only a select few. A newspaper with a big name like The Wall Street Journal can lend gravity to your words, but limiting your audience to paid subscribers weakens your message.
2. Own your mistakes; no one has forgotten you made them.
It was important that Barros acknowledged the company’s failure to launch after the data breach was announced. Every story about Equifax’s crisis response has included a recap of all known PR gaffes.
Equifax's critics have had much to discuss: The company waited more than a month to alert the public to the breach; three of its executives sold stock days after the hack was detected; and on multiple occasions, its official Twitter account directed customers to a fake phishing site rather than to its own security update site.
By acknowledging the mistakes, Barros can begin to reclaim agency as the face of the company. Ignoring those mistakes could undermine his credibility.
3. Offer a timeline with concrete actions you will take.
By giving a specific action plan for lifetime credit protection, Barros gave reporters something to talk about other than Equifax’s long list of blunders. Any news article has only so many words; the more journalists wrote about the initiative, the less they covered the other stuff.
Communicators, does Equifax’s apology go far enough? How would you have released this mea culpa for maximum impact?
(Image via)from PR Daily News Feed http://ift.tt/2fy3052
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