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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 9461601" data-attributes="member: 58416">Depends on the situation.Given the situation of being in the midst of rolling out a new core product -for which you took preorders and customer money- I think some cursory statement about still looking into what happened with the printer and (more importantly) that you're exploring options for ensuring that the early adopters (who had faith enough in your product to pay in advance) have an option for still getting their order should be (imo) within a week of the issue being announced.This early statement need not have many details, and it likely won't. It is mainly to communicate that the company is looking into the issue and that more details will come later. That also establishes communication in a positive and pro-active way, while giving the company control over when/where the next step in communication will occur."...we're having our team look into it and collecting information about what went wrong at the printing facility... blah blah blah... as we get more information and come up with a plan to ensure that our loyal fans and customers... whatever whatever... and going forward, we will have the head of Community Relations take point on this... they will have an update on [social media channel] on [whatever date]."If I was getting paid to sit down and craft a statement, it would be better than that, but I think that covers the basic idea.Take a negative and turn it into a positive by driving community engagement, having control over the time & place that an update will occur, and driving traffic to a channel of your choosing (which could later be a place to start sprinkling in positive news during updates).Next, be sure to avoid lying and avoid corporate jargon or double-speak. It's okay to admit that you don't currently know something -but you'll look into it and try to have more information at the next update. It's also okay to say that you're not yet able to speak on something because it's still under review by a legal team (or something similar,) but you expect to be able to give a statement on [date]. Either way, you are taking control, communicating, and building forward.Once you do have solid answers, make it simple: this is what happened; this is what we're doing to make sure it doesn't happen again; these are your options for resolving the issue.</blockquote>

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