Crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan: every company needs one

Crises often occur un­ex­pec­tedly, and sadly, no brand is safe from them. They may start small, but one third of all business crises spread to an in­ter­na­tion­al level within just a few hours. Therefore, PR experts should be available where a crisis occurs and where a brand’s target group is active. There’s a reason why crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion is such an important component of a good PR strategy and an extensive plan is mandatory for every business.

Crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plans are the center­piece of a crisis man­age­ment policy. The ad­vant­ages are obvious: a solid plan provides a dedicated com­mu­nic­a­tion framework tailored to the needs of a business. Good planning that includes an ordered sequence of responses during critical times can be vital for companies.

To quickly and ef­fi­ciently inform stake­hold­ers of a difficult (or even threat­en­ing) situation, a dedicated strategy should be prepared ahead of time. As such, a crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan is an important part of crisis man­age­ment.

Putting in place or­gan­isa­tion­al forms, struc­tures, and pro­ced­ures provides companies with more con­fid­ence to act ap­pro­pri­ately during hard times. This is important because business media is fast-paced and reports quickly, adding con­sid­er­able time pressure. Most im­port­antly, plans should guarantee speedy pub­lic­a­tion of in­form­a­tion and ensure that a uniform message is shared across all platforms. The crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan is used to ensure the security of customers and staff, and protect a brand’s image in the long-term.

A written crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan ensures that relevant personnel un­der­stand the im­port­ance of crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion and are aware of the steps to take. The plan should focus on three phases: the time before, during, and after an emergency.

You won’t have any influence on when, where, or how a company may be affected, but you’ll have control over how you respond to the situation. That’s why a crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan should be prepared, regularly reviewed, and updated.

During the first step, you should collect in­form­a­tion on all possible scenarios of things going wrong. Because it’s not easy to prepare for un­ex­pec­ted situ­ations, here’s a list of different types of possible crises:

• Natural disaster
• Dis­rup­tion to normal business processes
• Violation of customer or staff rights
• Product ma­nip­u­la­tions

It’s a good idea to evaluate the risk for each type of crisis possible, and to delegate re­spons­ib­il­ity. If you realise that certain situ­ations are un­avoid­able, it’s worth in­tro­du­cing the necessary steps in advance.

Not every negative review online or offline qualifies as a crisis. Together with your investors, you should decide which situ­ations must be treated as prob­lem­at­ic versus critical. A problem can cause a stir, but doesn’t damage a brand long-term. A crisis, on the other hand, can cause long-term damage to your brand and lead to financial losses. Once you’ve defined what con­sti­tutes a crisis versus a problem in­tern­ally, you’re able to design better plans and use your resources more ef­fect­ively.

Prepare a list of all investors and affected parties who should be kept up-to-date during a crisis. This list may include members of staff, customers, users, partners, investors, media, the gov­ern­ment, and the public in general. Where a crisis is site-specific, the list should also include people who are close to a certain location. Make sure that all relevant contact in­form­a­tion for each group is included in your plan.

The person or team who announces a critical situation may not be ul­ti­mately re­spons­ible for com­mu­nic­at­ing it. That’s why your company should establish a hierarchy for in­form­a­tion exchange in­tern­ally. In this way, everyone knows who to turn to.

The sequence depends on the structure of your team. The first step could involve informing the CEO or president of the or­gan­isa­tion, followed by the com­mu­nic­a­tions de­part­ment leader. The plan should include which in­form­a­tion the re­spect­ive parties receive including details on the situation and likely back­lashes.

Select co-workers with the right skills. Some may spe­cial­ise in dealing with social media while others are confident in public speaking. A company should be aware of its employees’ strengths and make use of them during difficult times. In addition, you should provide regular training on how to handle problems when dealing with offline and social media outlets.

In every crisis, people will have questions. Whether it’s a client’s legal counsel or a reporter, the public will want to know the truth. That is why proactive com­mu­nic­a­tion during a crisis is vital. To ensure as much trans­par­ency as possible, your team should focus on preparing in­form­a­tion about the situation.

One of the first steps usually involves giving a statement. That’s why good planning includes preparing state­ments for pre-defined emer­gen­cies. When required, these state­ments can be modified to suit a par­tic­u­lar situation. State­ments should be brief and reassure the public that the company is taking the necessary steps to in­vest­ig­ate the issue and will be sharing further in­form­a­tion at a later point in time.

Crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plans can help to identify possible questions and answers that may arise during difficult times. For example, if a natural cata­strophe hits your headquar­ters, some common questions may include: “Was somebody injured during the incident?” or “How long will it take for the business to return to normal operation?”.

Sim­u­la­tions of emer­gen­cies show you how well you’ve prepared for one. Sim­u­la­tions can be run in con­junc­tion with external providers. Exercises aim to train processes and stabilise the knowledge of in­di­vidu­al par­ti­cipants. They’re also useful to update employees on relevant de­part­ments in charge of crisis response, ac­cess­ib­il­ity, and useful resources. Further, you should schedule regular in­spec­tions.

Use spe­cial­ist tools to monitor and analyse social media responses. Using these stat­ist­ic­al tools will enable you to predict crises before they reach their full magnitude and become known to the wider public.

Reactive com­mu­nic­a­tion is just as important. Every negative mention in social media should be addressed im­me­di­ately. One part of your crisis man­age­ment plan should be dedicated solely to your social media response. This ensures that a broader community spreads your message.

Don’t panic. While you may need to react quickly, you shouldn’t take in­con­sid­er­ate actions. Organise your thoughts and consult your action plan and any prepared state­ments. This allows you to react according to the prepared guidelines.

Start where the crisis began. If a problem was first reported on Twitter, you should react on Twitter. Link to a public statement and share your message across other channels. Even if you’re not including all the facts, you should spread a public message. If you don’t react swiftly, you’ll lose control of public opinion. Ad­di­tion­ally, you wouldn’t want to give the im­pres­sion that your company is not taking matters seriously or is un­pre­pared.

If you prepared well, you can now reap the benefits. Use your pre­vi­ously drafted state­ments and adapt them to the current situation. Before you share your message across all com­mu­nic­a­tion channels, you should consider the pe­cu­li­ar­it­ies of the in­di­vidu­al platform and adapt materials where necessary.

For a more trust­worthy message, a company should avoid technical jargon and focus on com­mu­nic­a­tion that’s easy-to-un­der­stand. Don’t overload your statement with un­im­port­ant details, keeping it to just three important points. The clearer your com­mu­nic­a­tion, the easier it will be for the public to com­pre­hend it. This ensures that you’re not being mis­un­der­stood or are getting caught up in small details.

While your message should be adapted to in­di­vidu­al channels, its core ideas should be the same. Where the message is in­con­sist­ent across different types of media channels, you risk for your company being viewed as in­com­pet­ent.

Your customers need a contact point. That’s why you should provide a dedicated platform outside of social media. This lets you monitor reactions more ef­fect­ively and respond ac­cord­ingly without running the risk of things getting out of hand. Don’t forget: tra­di­tion­al means of com­mu­nic­a­tion such as press con­fer­ences or in­ter­views have sig­ni­fic­ant ad­vant­ages over social media and are sometimes the better means to overcome a crisis.

Analysing your com­mu­nic­a­tion during a time of emergency is more important than most other times. You should monitor how your state­ments are perceived by keeping an eye on the reactions of stake­hold­ers. Then you can react swiftly and adapt measures where necessary.

The follow-up to a prob­lem­at­ic time is just as important as the pre­par­a­tion and in-crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion. One thing is certain: this won’t be the last crisis. Using your crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan should be followed up to in­cor­por­ate insights gained during this time for future com­mu­nic­a­tion. In this way, you can raise your staff’s awareness of crisis man­age­ment and generate best practices based on the specific ex­per­i­ences collected.

A statement is rarely enough. A company’s words should be followed by action, otherwise, the public won’t take your efforts seriously. Relief efforts for customers or changes made to your processes need to be made public in order to boost the repu­ta­tion of your brand.

It’s important to take stock of a situation after an emergency has ended in order to revise your crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan or possibly even your entire PR strategy on the basis of your findings. Ad­di­tion­ally, reports shared with stake­hold­ers should be based on the in­form­a­tion collected during the crisis.

Identify the weak­nesses of your crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan af­ter­wards in order to rectify them and be prepared for the next emergency. Con­tinu­ous ad­apt­a­tion is important to in­cor­por­ate best practices for your business and consider new strategies.

Finally, you should share the revised version of your crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan with all co-workers online. Fur­ther­more, all employees of your com­mu­nic­a­tions team should receive a printed copy. This ensures that everyone has a copy of the plan in case of technical outages.

Some brands cope with a crisis better than others. They are the examples we can all learn from. It’s worth examining the mistakes that were made during a crisis. The following examples can be used as models for suc­cess­ful crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion.

Southwest, based in the USA, is one of the most secure airlines globally. However, that’s not to say the company has never recorded any accidents. During one of its flights, an engine failure led to the death of one passenger – the first death on its aircraft. Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest, didn’t waste any time and im­me­di­ately reacted to the situation by apo­lo­gising to the family of the victim. Af­ter­wards, he took down all adverts from social media and spoke to customers per­son­ally on the phone to offer support and advice. The company’s CEO was prepared for the situation and im­me­di­ately expressed his sincere regret through his words and actions.

Res­taur­ant chain KFC faced a crisis back in 2018 when it ran out of chicken. The brand is known for its chicken dishes – so this was a problem. The PR team quickly swung into action and put a positive spin on the situation. It launched videos and tweets humbly apo­lo­gising for the shortage. This example shows that crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion is just as important for res­taur­ants. Possible problems include food poisoning, un­hygien­ic working con­di­tions, and delivery issues that could lead to a food shortage.

Crises can affect all companies, but luckily busi­nesses can prepare for them and create a business crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan. Un­pre­pared com­mu­nic­a­tions during a crisis present a high risk for companies. Therefore, busi­nesses should create a com­pre­hens­ive crisis com­mu­nic­a­tion plan which allows for secure and fast action during difficult times.

To master chal­len­ging times, it’s important for crisis managers to develop a fun­da­ment­al un­der­stand­ing of their com­mu­nic­a­tion and coping schemes. A crisis com­mu­nic­a­tions plan protects the most important assets of a company: its repu­ta­tion and brand. Busi­nesses that invest in crisis man­age­ment recover quicker during emer­gen­cies and save costs compared to those that aren’t prepared.

Please note the legal dis­claim­er relating to this article