The Challenge:
A U.S. wholesale company experienced a widespread system outage due to a ransomware attack that halted the company’s ability to pick, pack, and ship products to its customers across the country. The company was successful in launching its crisis response plan while it mobilized cross-functional teams to understand and resolve the outage. Stakeholders credited the company with ensuring timely and frequent communications for the duration of the outage while IT teams recovered the company’s systems in a matter of weeks. The next important step would be to rebuild trust with customers.
Alpha’s Solution:
- Alpha supported the multi-phased business recovery process that included communications during the initial catch-up phase and beyond.
- The first phase of communications focused on orders that had been in process, many of which remained in warehouses when the outage occurred. The other aspect of communication was with the sales teams whose customers demanded to know when and how they would receive their orders, as well as logistics for fleet and LTL carriers.
- The next phase of communication focused on sharing details of critical system improvements that would prevent future cybersecurity issues. During the outage, many reseller customers went to competitors in order to keep their own businesses afloat. It was imperative to regain confidence and win business back.
- The last phase of communication focused strictly on customer service improvements as another measure to rebuild reputation. The system investments made in the recovery also presented an opportunity to make order processing faster and easier.
Results:
- As a result of the significant system and process improvements, as well as a robust communications plan, the company successfully regained customers over the next four months and sales eventually returned to pre-crisis levels.
