When your company’s failure is linked to three deaths, what words could possibly suffice? For Optus, the cost of its latest crisis extends far beyond the deaths that have been linked to Thursday’s Triple Zero outage. They will continue to believe Optus was directly responsible for the death of a baby, even if that turns out not to be the case. This harsh reality then makes the initial response from Optus even more critical. In an era when first impressions become permanent for many, there is no room for the kind of failures we’ve witnessed.