A crisis often comes unexpectedly, without warning and at the worst possible time. At any given moment a natural disaster, public health concern, or technology issue can interrupt operations and negatively impact your business. Missteps can quickly escalate, becoming media stories and social media conversations. How you manage a crisis can have long-term consequences on your business and reputation.
Develop a crisis communications plan before you actually need one. Crisis communication plans focus on steps to take when a situation first emerges, how to communicate with stakeholders, and how to prevent the issue from occurring again.
While your industry or business may have unique issues, below are some strategies to help you to deliver an effective response during the three stages of a crisis.
1. Pre-Crisis
Identify the goal of the plan: Ensure every aspect for the plan aligns with goal. It helps to keep you and the team on track.
Establish the Core Team: Think through who needs to have a voice at the table and provide subject matter expertise. It should have decision makers from Legal, Operations, HR, Marketing and Communications. This group is your first line of defense. Create a group distribution list so that it is faster easier to communicate with them. Decide where you will meet and how often.
Identify stakeholders: Consider the communications needs of your employees, the community, media, customers, private investors, government and regulatory agencies.
Identify potentials risks: Outline common scenarios and those specific to your industry or business. A few examples are natural disasters, disruptions in normal business functions, employee or customer injuries, social issues and customer service.
Develop processes and protocols: Create a workflow and structure for sharing information within the company. Train employees on what to do and who to call if there is an actual or potential crisis. That way, no matter who notices the crisis emerging, they’ll know who to go to first. This might include known details about the crisis, the source of the incident, and any existing backlash.
Create communications materials: Develop a playbook that includes possible scenarios, drafts of press releases, responses, and fact sheets. It is easier to customize a response if you have a starting point.
Identify and prepare the spokespeople: Make it clear to employees that only authorized personnel can speak on behalf of the company in times of crisis. Provide media training so those selected few are ready for interviews. Some of the biggest PR nightmares come from someone misspeaking, not taking the advice of the team into account, speaking “off the record” or “winging it” in the moment.
Monitor social media: Social media allows companies to interact with audiences across the globe. Customers can share stories, post pictures, and upload videos for the world to see. One viral video painting your company in the wrong light can lead to millions of people developing a negative perception of your brand. Create guidelines for social media.
2. During the Crisis
Remain calm: Focus on executing the plan you have prepared and provide key information. Things can be intense and chaotic. Remember to breathe and respond from a rational perspective and not an emotional one.
Assess the situation: Gather the facts. Understand as much as possible about the situation, timeline of events, results and future implications. Assure the information is accurate. Determine the severity and the next steps.
Plan and design your message: Identify the objective and call-to-action of the communication. Consider your internal and external audience. Be proactive, transparent, accurate and accountable. Keep it simple with no more than three main messages for all audiences and a few messages targeted specifically at key audiences.
Select communications channels: Decide which format is appropriate for the situation and the audience. Brief employees, clients, prospects, and investors personally, via text messages or e-mails. Inform the broader community on social media. Have a dedicated landing page on your website. Distribute news releases, letters or hold briefings and news conferences for the media. Communicate early and commit to a timeline for updates.
Prepare to ride it out: Some of your audiences will not react the way you want. Take an objective and non-emotional look at the reactions. Details of the situation may change rapidly. Decide if additional communication is necessary.
3. Post-Crisis
Continue to monitor the situation: Things can change quickly and new developments may occur. Remain in the loop.
Deliver the deliverable: If a follow-up course of action was promised or mentioned during the crisis, act on it as soon as possible. A response or apology is meaningless without corrective action.
Follow-up: Provide stakeholders with updates about current status, results and preventive measures.
Debrief: Connect with your team quickly after the situation de-escalates to capture lessons learned and ways to improve for the next crisis. Keep clear notes in order to update the crisis plan.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have an outline, your crisis communications plan should be customized for your organization. Provide copies to all department heads and managers. Keep copies of this plan available as a hard copy and in multiple digital locations. You never know where you will be when an issue occurs. Review and update it often. Schedule practice drills. Lead your team through a mock crisis to help prepare for the real thing.
If your business needs some additional help with preparing for or managing a crisis, you can also hire communications strategists. Nicallyss Creative Group offers customized solutions to help you create your plan and prepare for any crisis situation your company or organization may face. Schedule your consultation today.