For Microsoft, giving the Financial Times an exclusive interview with a senior executive to discuss Windows 8 must have seemed like a good idea at first. Then the story appeared.
When Tami Reller, head of marketing and finance for Windows 8, sat down with the FT’s Richard Waters, she probably thought it was going to be a simple interview about software. It didn’t turn out that way.
Tami Reller
The front-page article in Monday’s FT reported that Microsoft was preparing to make major changes in its Windows 8 operating system, calling it “one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola’s New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago.” Ouch.
What played out next was a public-relations nightmare, as other media outlets picked up the theme and Microsoft scrambled to contain the damage, issuing a brief statement saying the FT got the story wrong and posting its own interview with Reller on a company blog.
The overall result was a flurry of unfavorable reports that replayed negative coverage from several months ago about the system’s problems – reports that surely prompted Microsoft to mount a counter-offensive by approaching the FT in the first place.
What lessons can companies learn from Microsoft’s misfortune?
First, have a clear message. It sounds so simple, but Microsoft seems to have forgotten this basic principle of communications. Reller should never have spoken to the FT without having a clear message and thorough preparation to handle tough questions. With all of the negative commentary around Windows 8, Microsoft must have known how difficult the interview would be.
Even with good preparation, of course, an interview can go off the rails. That’s why it‘s important to have a contingency plan. It looks like the FT was especially aggressive in this case (the Coke comparison was overdone), but that’s always a risk. When the unexpected happens, what a company does next is critically important. A strong corporate statement, media interviews for senior executives, briefings for analysts are all ways to respond aggressively to a damaging news article. This story would look very different if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had issued a comment or appeared in a short video statement.
Another lesson: If you’re going to make big change, make a big announcement. It appears Microsoft wanted to quietly suggest it was considering changes to Windows 8. That would have been a reasonable stance when customer problems first appeared shortly after the product’s release. But now, months later, a more definite plan was required. If major changes are in store, Microsoft should announce them and try to win back customer favor. As it stands, they’re somewhere in the middle, saying “key aspects” of the software will be changed, without being more specific. That only adds to the uncertainty surrounding the Windows 8 strategy.
Last, if you aren’t ready, say nothing. Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is keep quiet. But that is often the best strategy if your new product or service isn’t ready for launch. Very few companies can spin promises about new products into favorable media coverage (Apple could, at least in the past, which must drive Microsoft nuts). Having something tangible is essential. Without a clear strategy for Windows 8, Reller should have skipped the interview.