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Outages last month left millions across the world without access to their BlackBerry's online services but it was a prolonged period without apology or explanation that really riled the smartphone's users. Three communicators offer their advice.

Gordon Tempest-Hay, chief executive, Blue Rubicon

What can be written about recent BlackBerry problems that hasn't already been penned, analysed, tweeted, blogged and folded around some chips!? Not much. Yes, comms around the recent outage could have been better (I suspect that the comms team here in the UK was saying much the same within the company); yes, coverage around BlackBerry Messenger and the riots wasn't helpful; and, yes, sales of Playbook and a delay to the Playbook's software update are disappointing. But, through all of this, reports of the firm's death are somewhat premature.

Which was the biggest selling smartphone in the UK in the third quarter? Yep, it's BlackBerry. Globally, parent company Research In Motion has seen its market share come under attack from intense competition, but third quarter figures show that it still holds a solid grip on ten per cent of the market with nearly 12 million units shipped. But shipping numbers alone don't tell the full story. What matters is not just volume but who uses BlackBerry devices, how embedded or transitory those devices are with users, and how profitable they are. And if we learnt nothing else from the recent difficulties, it's that business leaders, world leaders, numerous institutions and organisations put BlackBerry at the heart of their operations and they have shown themselves to be pretty robust in their plans to stick with the brand despite the recent problems. As Alastair Campbell summed it up, The bastards, they've got me!

So, what does this tell us? In short, if you have a great brand, a business model which makes you all but irreplaceable, and a history of delivery then you can take a few reputational hits and ride out the storm. But, like any boxer, there are only so many blows to the face that can be absorbed before you're on the canvas. So, from this point on, the BlackBerry fight-back must be intense and without frailty. If it is, we may all be suffering from 'BlackBerry thumb' for many years to come.

John Stonborough, managing director, Air Supremacy

Who or what is RIM? The question goes to the heart of a bombshell in Slough on Monday 10 October and illustrates Rule One of crisis PR; Communicate.

RIM is Research in Motion of Canada, in other words the BlackBerry smartphone system. That morning a server failed at their Slough data hub. The Egham backup site keeled over too. In a jiffy millions of BlackBerry users on three continents lost email, Messenger and Internet. Why it happened is irrelevant (it was a core switch failure), how RIM handled the PR is not.

OMG One. The company wanted to protect the BlackBerry brand. So they fronted RIM to handle the crisis dialogue. But who's heard of RIM? It's faceless and without that familiarity (trust), had not earned our permission to fail. They tried it in 2008 and it didn't work too well then either.

OMG Two. On Wednesday 12 October, the Slough centre was still down and still no sign of anybody in charge; just Internet PR bleats that began We know some of you are experiencing service problems. Some of you! LOL. How about every BlackBerry user from Cork to Calcutta and parts of America too.

OMG Three. Finally, on Thursday RIM founder Mike Lazaridis issued a toe-curling video-grovel. It was far too late, though I was fascinated by his shiny black 'B&Q shelf-stacker' style shirt and failure to read autocue without his eyes zigzagging. These gaffes are so fundamentally fixable and have no place among executives in a global crisis.

OMG Four. One week later, with servers up and humming, RIM offered customers 'a selection of premium apps worth a total value of more than $100 (£62), free of charge'. The majority are available free of charge anyway. That's if you wanted them; an example of offering what costs the company least not sensing what customers might really appreciate.

The lesson RIM has learnt the hard way again is that a mobile phone is a toy friend not a glazed tin with wires. People will forgive when it goes pear-shaped, provided they know, or feel they know, the people putting it right. And I never mentioned Apple PR once.

Eila Madden, emerging markets consultant, Bladonmore

BlackBerry found itself in the middle of a PR nightmare last month when a botched attempt at a software upgrade at its UK headquarters in Slough left users across Europe, Africa and the Middle East without service. Two days later, the problem had spread to customers in North America.

BlackBerry owner Research In Motion (RIM) made a bad problem worse by failing to communicate effectively with millions of its customers who had suffered. For more than 36 hours, RIM failed to provide basic information about the problem, what was causing it, how many people were affected and when it would be resolved.

RIM also underestimated the power of social media. Within hours of the outage, social networks were flooded with angry customers demanding to know what was going on. A single, infuriatingly vague, Twitter message during the first day of the crisis is the only evidence of communication from RIM in those first, crucial hours. Not good enough.

What should RIM have done differently? First, bosses should have acknowledged the problem and apologised for the inconvenience caused much faster than they did. RIM founder chief executive Mike Lazaridis' grovelling but largely uninformative YouTube video was too little too late.

Second, RIM needed to clearly explain what it was doing to rectify the problem. That explanation needed to come from Lazaridis and be reinforced by company spokespeople in every affected market. A generic statement about doing all it could to restore service wasn't going to cut it with infuriated BlackBerry users.

Finally, RIM needed to reassure customers this would not happen again and explain why. Negative PR is unavoidable in times of crisis but by being better prepared and more responsive and open with customers, the media and social networks, RIM could have emerged with more of its reputation intact. The company is now facing class action lawsuits in North America and Canada. RIM's market value has also fallen to less than the net value of its property, patents and other assets - a clear sign that investors are losing faith in it.

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