Blackberry users had a frustrating week in October, facing not only the collapse of services across EMEA and then the Americas, but the silence of those responsible.

The service interruptions of Monday 10 October saw Twitter filled with tweets from angry customers and statements from T-mobile and Vodafone seeking to assure customers that the fault was not with them. However, it was Tuesday 11 by the time RIM shared via the online newsroom the cause of the delays.

On Wednesday 12, once the backlog of messages had begun to affect the Americas, a telephone press conference dealt with some – but not all – of the questions regarding RIM’s communications strategy.

In answer to the question, ‘Does Blackberry believe it has done all that it can to communicate with its customers?’, RIM’s response was: ‘We have been posting some regular updates on our Twitter handles and on the websites.’

Founder and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis admitted in a video posted in the Newsroom on Wednesday 12 ‘we know you want to hear more from us’. On the topic of their silence, the press conference response was that their priority was to restore the service to normal operational levels as that is what would make the customers happy.

(*That's crisis communications without the communications)