Crisis management expert Ross Campbell says National Australia Bank has done what most organisations wait too long to do - say sorry to customers when they get into strife.Campbell, CEO of RCA Crisis Management, said that NAB had followed most of the key elements of a sound crisis response strategy in communications over its extended payments problems.Spokesperson George Wright had offered the NAB's apologies up-front, he noted. "That was a strong clear signal that they were doing something, and that they were on their way to fixing [the problem]. They offered assistance, they asked for their customers' support, and they said they would do something."Campbell also praised the bank's willingness to open some branches on weekends to provide customers with funds. NAB opened 20 more branches on Saturday and yesterday (leaving more than 700 branches not trading).He cautioned that he is not close to the case, although he does work for other large financial firms.An IT systems failure that disrupts payments "is one of most banks' worst-case scenarios," he said. The speed of NAB's response suggested it had planned for such a failure and was executing a prepared public relations strategy.Campbell also suggested NAB CEO Cameron Clyne could have played a more central role in communicating to the public. "Public opinion appreciates a CEO message when confidence is an issue," he said. He pointed to Qantas CEO Alan Joyce's central role in explaining the airline's response to its A380 engine problems.NAB now needed to keep its promises to customers, he warned. "They need to follow every one of those customers through and sort out the problems one-by-one … It will be interesting to go back in a month's time a find out how people were compensated."And he noted that the NAB would also have to manage the impact on other stakeholders, including staff, continually communicating how problems were being managed.The Australian reported on Saturday that other key stakeholders - NAB's Australian rivals - were "scathing" about NAB's disaster recovery efforts. The other banks have suffered their own knock-on effects from the NAB's inability to complete payments.The article centred on anonymous criticisms of NAB's efforts at recovery from the payments failure, which still are not fully resolved a week and a half later.The newspaper quoted one "despairing senior banker" as saying: "It's an empty hole; it's not clear who's in charge over there".NAB late yesterday updated its advice to customers with the familiar language that "we know that some customers are still experiencing inconsistencies and we're actively working to address these as soon as possible."