Problem: How to Manage Your Reputation Through Good Crisis Communication?
Learning Objective 1: how to prepare for a crisis?
Use these 10 steps to gain the advantage and proactively prepare for the worst.
1. Identify your crisis communications team — a small group of senior executives.
Ideally, the company CEO leads with the top public relations executive and legal counsel as chief advisers.
2. Identify spokespersons.
They are the only ones authorized to speak for the company in times of crisis. Some executives are brilliant at business, but not very effective communicators.
3. Spokesperson training.
Well-intentioned executives believe they don’t need professional training on speaking to the media. Beware. Aggressive reporting and not knowing how to get “the most important news” across to the interviewer can devastate your company.
4. Establish communications protocols.
Establish an emergency communications “tree” and distribute it to all company employees, informing them of what to do and who to call if there’s an actual or potential crisis.
5. Identify and know your audiences – internal and external.
Remember your employees, the community, media, customers, private investors, SEC requirements and regulatory agencies.
6. Anticipate crises.
Be proactive and brainstorm potential crises. Modifying existing methods of operation often can prevent crises. Take time to plan layoffs, acquisitions and other news to avoid operating in crisis mode.
7. Assess the situation.
Reacting without adequate information is a classic “shoot first and ask questions later” scenario. With proper planning, you can follow your own crisis plan.
8. Identify key messages.
Keep it simple with no more than three main messages for all audiences and a few messages targeted specifically at key audiences.
9. Decide on communications methods.
Brief employees, clients, prospects, community and investors personally or via text messages, e-mails, social media. Distribute news releases, letters or hold briefings and news conferences for the media.
10. Ride out the storm.
Some of your audiences will not react the way you want. Take an objective look at the reactions. Decide if making an additional communication is worth the effort.
By following these steps, you create a plan that can be used at any time in the event of a crisis. Provide copies to all department heads and managers. Keep copies of this plan available in hard copy and on the computer network. Once your plan is developed, keep it handy for review and schedule practice drills. Having a mock crisis helps you prepare for the real thing. The crisis team should meet twice a year to review and update the plan. The team should also evaluate the plan after each mock crisis.
http://www.axiapr.com/blog/prepare-your-company-for-crisis
Learning Objective 2: how to manage a crisis?
In the online era, it becomes critical for the business of any size to have a social media crisis management plan – or even better, a crisis prevention plan – in place for those times when things go wrong. And it is truly the matter of “when” vs. “if.”
Let’s take a look at some of the ways to avoid social media disasters, prevent them from escalating, or handle things if everything goes sideways.
1. Listen and Be Present
In the past, companies like The Gap have been accused of not responding to customers’ concerns about faulty merchandise or refund issues – simply because they were not set up to handle customer service problems through their social media channels. Unfortunately, in the digital age, not listening to the social chatter or having presence on social communities can reflect badly on your brand. Even responding with a simple link to the correct website page is helpful – and shows your customers you take them seriously.
And listen! Sometimes social listening tools will pick up the chatter about a topic that you may not expect and will give you time to address it before it blows up within the social stratosphere. Most of the brand disasters could have been prevented just by picking up the early chatter and being prepared to address it before it escalates.
2. Set The Right Expectations
If you are a small business or have limited bandwidth to respond to customer inquiries in real-time, then set the right expectations upfront on the timing within which people should expect your response. 24, 48, 72 hours… Be specific and make that expectation visible to ensure it is seen. But always stick to it.
3. Be Transparent
Certain companies have been guilty of removing posts they didn’t agree with, ignoring those posts, or else claiming that they had been hacked, when they clearly hadn’t. Trying to cover up or remove justified but negative comments can make you look as if you are ignoring a problem or, worse off, don’t care about the customers. It is critical to be honest and upfront about any issues you or your company may be facing. If you made a mistake, admit it, apologize, and do everything in your power to correct it. We are all human and humans make mistakes. Your customers don’t expect you and your teams to be perfect, just transparent and honest. They expect you treat them like family, a part of your tribe, and that means not betraying their trust with back-peddling and cover ups.
Warren Buffet once said: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
4. Respond Thoughtfully
It’s worth putting some effort into writing a thoughtful reply aimed at addressing your customers’ concerns. Showing that you care about their experience and are willing to address problems (or even go above and beyond) is a great way of actually winning around critics and turning them into fans. According to The Retail Consumer Report, commissioned by RightNow and conducted online by Harris Interactive in January 2011, of those customers who received a reply in response to their negative review 33% turned around and posted a positive review, and 34% deleted their original negative review. 85% of consumers said they would be willing to pay anywhere between 5-25% over the standard price to ensure a superior customer experience.
Caring really pays off. It builds trust and allows you to further nurture relationships with your current customers. Word-of-mouth recommendation from your current satisfied customers are much more influential than your own brand messages, and they will bring new customers in.
5. Do Not Lose Your Cool – Ever
There may be times when you disagree with your customers. But being rude or attacking them in social forums is absolutely unacceptable. Provide the best information you can and do your best to satisfy every inquiry. If nothing helps and a customer insists on being rude and un-cooperative, just ignore him/her and move on; in those rare times, no matter what you do, nothing will probably be good enough.
And don’t take everything personally. The customer isn’t angry with you, (s)he frustrated with the product or a brand as a whole. Don’t take these interactions personally. Just do your best to help them out and move on.
6. Have a Crisis Management Team In Place
Going back to my point #1…When you pick up a digital chatter around a specific issue, you have a great opportunity to address it before it blows up in your face. But be sure you have the way to quickly escalate and resolve the issue. This process should be a part of your overall crisis management plan. I suggest forming a team consisting of team members from PR, HR, legal, marketing, and other relevant teams that can come together to quickly craft and post a response that would quite down the chatter and will help solve the issue at hand.
7. Manage Access To Your Social Media Accounts Carefully
There have been instances of employees posting personal updates to brand accounts not realizing that they haven’t switched to the right account. Making sure you are limiting access to only knowledgeable community managers who have appropriate training with avoid mistakes such as these.
And then there is a process for managing access when employees switch jobs or leave the company altogether. When music retail chain HMV laid off a large number of its employees in January 2013, bosses didn’t realize their marketing team – who had been made redundant – still had access to the brand’s social media sites. The team went online to protest at the way the situation had been handled by executives, tweeting statements like “There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring” before they were finally shut down.
8. Post Moderation Guidelines
Most sites have their own Terms and Conditions, but you can also post your own moderation guidelines on your social media pages to make it obvious what behavior will or will not be tolerated within your social communities. Being up-front about your “house rules” makes it simpler to take down offensive posts by referring to your rules and pointing out how they were violated.
9. Hire Experienced Community Managers
There are still some organizations that treat social media communities like an afterthought and leave it to the interns to post an occasional tweet. Your social media is every bit a part of your brand image and reputation – so hire professionals! A community manager should be experienced, know your brand in and out, understand your brand’s voice and personality, and, most importantly, love your customers. Community manager is a critical position that serves as a voice of a customer within your organization, so don’t underestimate it. Plus, a seasoned community manager will know the right way to deal with disgruntled customers, be able to deal with social media take-over attempts, and know when to take the conversation off-line.
10. And Remember… You Will Never Please Everybody
Sometimes, as a leader and as a brand, you will have to be willing to be misunderstood. If you strongly believe in what you are doing or in a specific point of view, but some people don’t share the same opinion, you will have to be willing to stand by your decision. In this case you will have to be prepared to be transparent and honest about it, share the reasons why you feel so strongly about the subject, and be prepared to calmly address the questions and criticism that come your way. That is where your social communities become even more important – this is the opportunity for your fans and your tribe (people who share your point of view and believe in the same vision) to chime in and help support your message/cause. In cases such as these organic brand love and advocacy are powerful allies in defending brand’s reputation and spreading brand’s message.
Everybody makes mistakes. But having a solid plan in place to address the negative whiplash or complaints in a timely and transparent manner will not only help preserve your company’s reputation, but confirm yet again that you are a business that cares about its customers and willing to go an extra mile to make them happy and live up to your reputation.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ekaterinawalter/2013/11/12/10-tips-for-reputation-and-crisis-management-in-the-digital-world/
Examples:
Good
Toyota's recall fiasco (2010)
The crisis: Toyota recalled a total of 8.8 million vehicles for safety defects, including a problem where the car's accelerator would jam, which caused multiple deaths.
How Toyota responded: Toyota initially couldn't figure out the exact problem, but it sent out PR teams to try and stop the media backlash anyway. The upper management was invisible in the early stages of the crisis, skewing public perception further against the company.
Toyota's response was slow, with devastating results. But it served as a wake-up call for the company, which somehow turned it around in the months following the debacle.
The company failed miserably in its initial crisis management, but that's what makes Toyota's case so intriguing. Despite its monumental mistakes early on, Toyota still bounced back. Why?
It didn't take long for the public to remember Toyota's previously stellar reputation. The company offered extended warranties and pumped up marketing, leveraging its long-term track record and reassuring consumers about safety.
Its ads in the following months were more thoughtful and sincere, showing the company's dedication to fixing the problem. Toyota's executives -- especially in the US -- became more visible, speaking to the media and becoming active in the investigations.
The result: The Toyota brand showcased its resiliency, with its positive reputation built up over decades of good performance. The company leveraged this, focusing its marketing once again on safety and its proven track record. It had to show that this disaster -- including its own horrible mishandling of the situation -- was an aberration.
And it worked, with a little bit a of luck. NASA exonerated Toyota of the blame for most of the accidents in 2011 and the company's brand equity leapt 11% this year, according to WPP.
The Red Cross' rogue tweet (2011)
The crisis: One of the Red Cross' social media employees accidentally sent the tweet -- which was meant for her private account -- and didn't realize it. It stayed up for about an hour before the company's social media director was alerted and took it down.
How the Red Cross responded: Social media director Wendy Harman followed up with a humorous tweet from the official Twitter account and acknowledged the mistake.
It got support from Dogfish Head too, who embraced the hashtag #gettngslizzerd and encouraged its followers to donate to the Red Cross.
The result: The tweet generated a bit of buzz among bloggers and the Twitterverse, but so did the fun response by the company.
Fortunately for the Red Cross, although the nature of the tweet wasn't professional, it wasn't too controversial. Nobody was outraged, and the Red Cross had to deal with nothing more than a little embarrassment.
http://www.businessinsider.com/pr-disasters-crisis-management-2011-5?op=1&IR=T
Bad:
If you want to know how to make a bad crisis worse, follow BP's example.
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is huge. It would cover an area from Birmingham to the North Sea to France and to Southampton, if it was centred on London. I suspect that we would not be very happy about such an oil spill in the UK by an American company.
Faced with this disaster how has Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, coped? Not well.
Self pity "What the hell did we do to deserve this?" (April 29th) and then, infamously: "I want my life back" (May 31st): the eleven workers who were killed in the disaster would also like their lives back please, Tony.
Denial: ""the Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." (May 14th) followed up on May 18th by "I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest," This far into the crisis, this shows profound misjudgement.
Arrogance and insensitivity: "I'm a Brit, I can take it. (June 4th): that's a nice way to incense the Americans, especially after he assured them he slept well at night (May 18th). Finally, he showed supreme misjudgement in declaring "I don't feel my job is on the line" (May 31st). Wakey wakey Tony: you are not only the most reviled person in America, your job and your company is on the line.
Faced with disaster there are a few simple rule to follow:
Recognise the problem early: denial is bad
Move to action fast: analysis and the blame game can come later, if ever.
Over-react, if necessary. Insurers know that a claim dealt with fast costs less than a claim dealt with slowly. Do it whatever it takes to fix the problem.
Show some empathy with people on the wrong end of things: don't go all introverted and play the victim card ("I want my life back").
Over-communicate, especially with the key stakeholders.
It is staggering that a huge company in a crisis-prone industry could handle a crisis so badly.
Much of the blame attaches to the CEO. The only reason for not firing him today is so that he can take all the heat and then a new CEO can start with a clean slate. But on the other hand, his gaffes are now putting the whole business at risk. Its time for him to go.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bp-oil-spill-crisis-management-how-not-to-do-it/
Learning Objective 3: how to manage your reputation after a crisis?
Most important of all–in any crisis–is to short-circuit denial! It’s a human trait when disaster strikes to go straight into “this can not possibly be happening to me.” Or “if it is happening, it can not be that bad.” Or, “even if it IS that bad, no one will ever notice…” The more quickly you move beyond this denial, the more quickly you can put in the right fixes … and that makes all the difference to how the crisis will unfold, and how you will be remembered.
So, here are, straight out of my client letter, and out of my well of 125 hard-learned lessons of crisis management and recovery, 13 of the most important ones.
1. Just because you may have gotten away with something before–or know of others who have–do not assume that you will do so now. Assume that–eventually–all will be known, and design your actions accordingly.
2. Control your emotions. Just when your emotions will be going wild, you must conquer them and think strategically and smartly.
3. Keep your eyes on the outside. You will be tempted to withdraw into your inner world, but keep focused on the exterior reaction. You’ll make better decisions and it could help privately as well.
4. Move quickly to assess the situation and damage, and to not only publically strike the right note, but to start doing the right things.
5. Figure out what the right note–message, tone, words, delivery mechanism–is.
6. Never make a public denial when it’s a lie–there is no better way to be hated.
7. Each crisis is different–the particulars matter. So never just copy the responses of others, though you can learn from those who have done it well.
8. Limit your liability–but not your humanity–in how you respond to a situation.
9. Use the opportunity to reset your moral compass (i.e., listen to your lawyers, but not to the exclusion of your conscience).
10. If you must, take your medicine–apologize, make reparations–and then put in lasting, game-changing solutions.
11. Become a visible and real part of the solution–no matter what it takes.
12. Begin to be identified with best cases, so that your own “worst case” is forgotten over time.
13. Never, ever, ever make the same mistake again.
Davia Temin is CEO and president of Temin and Co., a global reputation and crisis management, coaching and marketing strategy consultancy working with corporations and institutions on some of the largest and most headline-grabbing crises of the day. Her website is teminandco.com, and you can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/DaviaTemin.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/12/crisis-management-reputation-brand-forbes-woman-leadership-business.html
A crisis is the ultimate unplanned activity and the ultimate test for managers. In a time of crisis, conventional management practices are inadequate and ways of responding usually insufficient. This author, a communications practitioner with global experience, details a well-managed crisis response that will leave stakeholders with a favourable impression and renewed confidence in the affected company.
Few circumstances test a company’s reputation or competency as severely as a crisis. Whether the impact is immediate or sustained over months and years, a crisis affects stakeholders within and outside of a company. Customers cancel orders. Employees raise questions. Directors are questioned. Shareholders get antsy. Competitors sense opportunity. Governments and regulators come knocking. Interest groups smell blood. Lawyers are not far behind.
As the ultimate unplanned activity, a crisis does not lend itself to conventional “command and control” management practices. In fact, some of the techniques for managing a crisis may fly in the face of conventional notions of planning, testing and execution. Preparation and sound judgment are critical for survival.
Since the Tylenol crisis of the 1980s (unknown parties tampered with bottles of the product), the concept of crisis management has become a specialized activity in the domains of communications and public relations. Companies have come to recognize crisis communications capabilities as a vital part of their risk management and business continuity strategies.
National Public Relations has been on the front lines of some of the highest-profile crises in Canada and beyond, for more than 30 years. We have devoted many more hours to helping companies avoid, manage and recover from a crisis. This article encapsulates our strategy for survival.
1. Crisis prevention: The case for issues management
The first task is to identify crisis risks or to recognize a crisis when it breaks out.
From a communications standpoint, a crisis is a business or organizational problem that is exposed to public attention, and that threatens a company’s reputation and its ability to conduct business.
A crisis can take on many forms, including natural or man-made disasters, environmental spills, product tampering or recalls, labour disruptions or criminal acts, to name a few. What makes them a crisis is the fact that they are the focus of intense media scrutiny.
Although some risks are beyond a company’s control, others can be foreseen. Research shows that the vast majority of crises arise when companies fail to identify a potentially contentious issue at an earlier, more benign, stage, and to develop a plan of action to manage the issue before the issue manages them.
An issue can fester for months, maybe years, until events and circumstances intersect and propel it to centre stage on the public agenda. In some cases, an issue may have been badly handled, and as a result, has escalated to the brink of becoming a crisis. Examples include:
- A major pharmaceutical company recalls a product that has proven to have adverse side effects. Relentless media attention reveals that the company had known for years about scientific studies that questioned those side effects.
- A brokerage firm, steeped in its own male macho culture, routinely subjects female employees to embarrassing or degrading working conditions, and ignores the most reasonable of complaints, until an employee launches a lawsuit and gains the support of women’s organizations nationwide.
- A company’s blue-chip board, having confidence in its high-profile CEO, rubber-stamps his recommendations, until a whistle-blower reveals shenanigans within the company that lead to a special audit and an OSC investigation.
A coordinated approach to issues management can help an organization effectively identify and anticipate potential issues, prevent crises from developing, and influence their evolution and outcome.
The first step is to conduct an issues audit?an inventory of a company’s vulnerabilities and the critical issues it is likely to confront. The task for companies in highly regulated sectors, like energy or pharmaceuticals, is more obvious than for other, less visible enterprises.
Within the company, a series of interviews with senior management is conducted. Business plans, processes, relationships and previous experience are analyzed. Key contacts in the industry, media and oversight functions are identified, and existing communications plans inspected for relevance.
Outside the company, media analysis, legislative tracking, industry reports, polls and surveys all help to bring potential threats to the surface.
Once a framework is established, the critical issues should be identified and prioritized in order of magnitude and likelihood of occurrence.
After the communications audit is complete, an issues manual is developed. This document details critical issues, the history and context of company involvement with them, and the company’s position on each one. If the issues have seeped into the public domain at any point, the level of visibility should be described, and allies and adversaries identified.
Some examples of issues that faced companies in recent years and escalated into crises include:
- Canadians’ penchant for bank-bashing was the context in which the country’s major banks unsuccessfully attempted to merge with each other;
- Advocacy groups raised red flags about unknown risks in producing and consuming genetically modified organisms before GMO-based products were sprung on the market;
- Heavy industrial emitters knew of Canada’s intention to ratify the ill-conceived Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change years before they expressed their views on its economic impact;
- Labour groups and others had been advocating better working conditions in the Third World before ethical sourcing became a mainstream concern for retailers.
Creating a crisis communications plan
The issues audit becomes the front end of a company’s crisis communications plan, and arguably, the most important document in the plan. As a complement to a company’s emergency procedures, the crisis plan should contain detailed communications response procedures in the event that any of the potential crises identified in the communications audit, or unforeseen external events, come to pass.
The following is a checklist of the contents of a good crisis communications plan:
- Names and contact information of the crisis team/ spokespeople. People need to know who holds responsibility for leading the organization through the crisis.
- Crisis triage. Understanding what level of “crisis” you’re facing. Establishing criteria to decide when a minor incident has the potential to become a national crisis can be a challenge.
- First response. What information has top priority? How will you initially respond to media?
- Alert/ notification procedures. Who needs to get information, and in what order of priority? By phone, e-mail, pager or fax?
- Situation room. Assess the physical space that will be the nerve centre for managing the crisis, including the required hardware and software, staffing, location and layout.
- Stakeholder communications. How do you plan to communicate with customers, shareholders, employees, government and the media?
- Contact lists. Include the “inputs (which media outlets and Internet message boards should be monitored, which opinion leaders should be kept track of, etc.) and “outputs” (which journalists should be contacted, which newspapers and television programs should be approached, which media outlets need to hear your story).
- Template responses. Standardized format,language and protocol for all communications.
Access to the crisis plan is essential. Many companies now maintain both print and electronic versions for ease of access and remote retrieval.
Testing the plan
In order to ensure that the messages contained in the crisis plan are delivered effectively and with credibility, and that the plan can be carried out, it needs to be tested. This is where crisis training and simulations come in, as well as media training.
Crisis training is best delivered by outside trainers who take participants through crisis theory and its practical applications to their industry or company. The crisis plan is reviewed and implemented in a simulated crisis to assess the organization’s preparedness, and to identify areas that need improvement. Did the crisis response, when played out, escalate or solve the crisis?
2. Crisis Management: “Plan for the worst; hope for the best”
Despite the best planning and foresight, organizations inevitably find themselves in a crisis from time to time.
- An oil company’s head office receives a media call asking for its reaction to the bombing of its pipeline in Central America, before the company itself has even heard the first report from the field.
- A packaged goods company learns it is being sued by disgruntled consumers.
- A delivery truck driver for a hazardous waste company calls his dispatcher to report he’s been in an accident and spilled his load of chemicals ina densely populated part of town.
Research has discovered common internal reactions when the issue first breaks.
The first casualty of a crisis is perspective. Characteristically, the pattern is one of escalation, with the initial response being surprise, itself the result of a lack of information.
Before the company knows about the incident, cameras are on the scene. In the absence of real information, an organization cannot respond meaningfully. However, that doesn’t stop media from reporting on it live, minute by minute.
As events escalate, management senses a loss of control over the issue. Intense scrutiny by the media, regulators, stakeholders and competitors breeds a siege mentality, tempting a company to batten down the hatches and say nothing at the very time the media is pounding at their door.
Panic sets in. Business planning horizons change from years into hours. Management attention is focused entirely on getting through the next interview.
External reactions mirror these internal dynamics. Initially, an incident may attract the interest of only a small constituency.
- Reports out of a small town indicate residents are concerned about the quality of its water supply.
- An obscure illness begins to affect a marginalized group of citizens.
- A scientific journal questions the safety of technology used in a popular consumer product.
As the hours and days pass, media reports breed a wider concern as other stakeholders become aware of the impact of the situation on them. Curiosity turns into concern and anxiety.
The absence of an adequate response by the players involved breeds anger and fear and invites a desire in others to retaliate for what is seen as wrongdoing. Stakeholders begin demanding answers. They want to strike back, with the view that someone has to “pay” for the consequences. Sooner rather than later, an organization loses the public trust and goodwill upon which its business has been built. Market share begins to erode. Stock prices drop. Government orders an inquiry.
Assessing a crisis
One of the most vital skills a company can possess is the ability to determine if, when and at what level of importance a crisis has struck:
- Is this a crisis, or is it simply a continuing business problem coming to the surface?
- Is it confined to a local area, or does it have the potential to become a situation of national or international importance?
- Has someone verified the incident or crisis?
- What are the legal implications?
- What level of resources will be required to manage it?
So what’s to be done? Ten rules for crisis management
1. Respect the role of the media. The media are not the enemy; they have direct access to the audiences you need to reach. Rather than avoiding media, use them as a conduit to communicate key messages. Prepare a statement that includes the confirmed facts; communicate what the company is doing and provide background information.
2. Communicate, communicate, communicate. The first rule of crisis management is to communicate. Early hours are critical and they set the tone for the duration of the crisis. The media’s first questions are likely to be simple and predictable:
- What happened?
- Where?
- When did you know of the problem?
- What are you doing about it?
- Who’s to blame?
- Were there warning signs?
- How will life or property be protected or compensated?
Be as forthright as possible; tell what you know and when you became aware of it; explain who is involved and what is being done to fix the situation. Be sure to correct misinformation promptly when it emerges.
- In the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani held a press conference in the ruins of Lower Manhattan that afternoon. In the coming days, he became the reassuring voice of calm for worried residents of the city.
- In the hours, days and months after the 1998 crash of Swissair 111 in Nova Scotia, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada held a series of media updates on the status of the crash investigation, and provided regular safety alerts to the international aviation community.
- When Pepsi-Cola heard first reports of syringes being found in soft drink bottles in 1993 — which turned out to be hoaxes — it launched a broad communications offensive to reassure consumers. Tactics included media relations and interviews, company open houses, video news releases, third-party endorsement and consumer hotlines.
Remaining silent or appearing removed, perhaps on the advice of legal counsel, tends to enrage the public and other stakeholders. A balanced communications strategy must be developed that protects corporate liability while satisfying the demands of today’s information and media dynamic.
As demanding as the public may be, they are usually inclined to give an organization the benefit of the doubt in the early hours of a crisis. They judge a company and its leaders not by the incident itself — which they recognize is often beyond the control of those individuals — but by their response.
3. Take responsibility. One of the more controversial tenets of crisis management is that someone involved in a crisis must be prepared to empathize, even publicly apologize, for the events that have transpired. This is different from accepting blame. Taking responsibility means communicating what an organization is doing to remedy a situation that the media and the public have determined involve that organization in some way.
4. Centralize information. A company needs to move quickly to gain control over information and the resolution of the crisis. Ensure that appropriate levels of management are updated with information from a wide variety of sources (media coverage, analyst comments, competitive intelligence, managers’ first-hand reports, etc.).
5. Establish a crisis team. Create and train the crisis team before a crisis strikes, and establish a situation room. During a crisis, when everyone goes into action, be sure the team has access to the highest levels of management.
6. “Plan for the worst; hope for the best.” Assume the worst-case scenario. Develop contingencies for the hours and days ahead, forecast possible consequences and determine plans of action.
7. Communicate with employees. Remember that employees are your front-line “ambassadors” in a crisis. Be sure they are aware of what the company is doing to deal with the situation.
8. Third parties. Use third parties to speak on your behalf. Third parties act as character witnesses and often carry more credibility than the organization at the centre of a crisis.
9. Use research to determine responses. Polling, market research and focus groups provide essential insight into the magnitude of a crisis and public attitudes about where hidden issues may lie. Monitor the Internet, chat rooms and blogs.
10. Create a website – If circumstances warrant, create a website to give quick, up-to-the-minute information and get the company’s story out.
Tips for handling media in a crisis
3. Crisis recovery: Regaining trust
As the crisis comes under control, a company should examine the impact the incident has had on its brand(s) and reputation. If the brand has taken a hit, a company may need to give consumers a reason to trust them again.
Companies should consider a broad range of potential communication initiatives to restore trust and loyalty.
- Following a recall of millions of cases of beer that may have contained a few bottles tainted with caustic cleaning material, a major brewery ran ads in newspapers across Canada, assuring consumers the problem was rectified and offering them coupons redeemable for a free beer.
- A major appliance company weathered controversy following the closure of a manufacturing facility that saw hundreds lose their jobs. The company ran a major public relations and advertising campaign to remind customers that it continued to have an active presence in the country, and was here for the long haul
- An international mining company seeks to restore normalcy to an overseas site that has been occupied by demonstrators and attracted an international backlash. The company begins a real effort at stakeholder communications and engagement, learning to work with its staunchest critics.
An entire arsenal of public relations techniques can be called upon, from media relations, internal communications, and thought-leadership initiatives to comprehensive corporate social responsibility programs.
Public opinion surveys can track changes in attitudes towards a company in the weeks and months after reputation-focused programs are launched.
Weathering a crisis: The last word
Most lectures on crisis management point out that the Chinese expression for crisis, wei ji, is a combination of two words: danger and opportunity. While no company would willingly submit itself to the dangers inherent in a crisis, the company that weathers a crisis well understands that opportunity can come out of adversity. A well-managed crisis response, coupled with an effective recovery program, will leave stakeholders with a favourable impression and renewed confidence in the affected company.
Gareth
Hardy is a British brand identity designer with a wealth of experience
in delivering revolutionary branding solutions. Working under the
tongue-in-cheek moniker of Down With Design, Gareth has worked for
clients both domestically and internationally, of all sizes and from a
variety of industries. In 2011 he wrote the successful book, Smashing
Logo Design (Wiley), which covers design theory and the techniques
needed to build great logos.
