How to Overcome a Crisis: Crisis Communication and Reputation Management Plan
Having to deal with the occasional crisis goes hand in hand with running a company.
More significant than the ‘fires’ you likely put out on a weekly basis, a crisis is an event that has a profound impact on customers, employees, investors and/or the public. Often, it puts the company’s reputation in jeopardy. As such, it requires action and a crisis communication plan.
Why is creating a crisis communication plan so important?
When a crisis happens, usually your company’s reputation is at stake. If your brand develops a bad reputation, neither customers nor investors are going to want to associate with your company.
People don’t want to spend money with, invest in, or collaborate with a negatively perceived company, for a myriad of reasons. They might not want to be associated with a brand with a negative rep – or perhaps the reputation gained makes your company seem untrustworthy, or maybe they’ll abstain because of their personal values.
Therefore, responding to a crisis in the right way – a.k.a. quickly, empathetically, and with honesty – is vital. Creating a crisis communication plan before the crisis hits means you know what to do when it does. You’re prepared with the right messaging, and you can get these messages out quickly to avoid exacerbating the problem.
5 Key Elements of a Crisis Communication Plan
Whether you’re able to communicate effectively in a crisis will come down to how prepared you are. The key to crisis preparation is to create a plan before a crisis emerges, so you’re ready when it does.
Here are the 5 key elements of a crisis communication plan every company should have.
- List of potential crises
Though it’s impossible to create a list of every crisis that could hit your company, you can build a list of several you think are possible, giving you a basis to create plans for how you’d tackle each. Consider your company’s – as well as your industry’s – weaknesses and vulnerabilities when doing so.
By building a list of different likely crises (and devising accompanying action plans) you’ll be quicker and more effective even at responding to a crisis you hadn’t anticipated, since your existing crises plans can be altered to fit crises that share similarities with those on your list.
- Decide on your messaging
For each crisis, write drafts of the kinds of messages you’ll need to send – whether to customers, the public, the media, employees, and/or investors – and to whom you’ll need to send them in the event of the crisis.
This will allow you to get the right crisis messaging out quickly, should a crisis arise. Make sure to keep a record of contact info for the parties you’ll need to get in touch with, too.
When drafting messages in response to a crisis, it’s good practice to check them against the five Cs of crisis communication: concern/care, commitment, competency, clarity, and confidence.
In other words, show that you care about the crisis and those it’s affected, commit to improving, and convey that you have the tools and skills to do so with confidence. Be clear about what this crisis is, how it came about, and how you intend to fix it, so that no one who hears the message leaves confused or in doubt about whether you know what you’re doing.
- Crisis communication team
For each crisis, there should be a team of individuals assigned to the crisis who are best equipped to navigate it.
These people will be responsible for gathering information about the crisis and delivering the right messages to the right people – both internal and external. A ‘spokesperson’ for the crisis should be nominated to take charge of all public relations during the crisis.
- Action plan
An action plan should instruct your crisis communication team about the steps to follow if a crisis occurs, from gathering information about the crisis and sharing it with the relevant people in the company, to sharing messages externally, including to customers, investors, and the media – including when and how.
- Brand reputation strategy
The part of your action plan that will require the most time and effort – and is trickiest to execute well – is the strategy to protect the reputation of your brand during a crisis, including safeguarding against the crisis from happening again.
As such, it should comprise the largest proportion of your action plan. With this in mind, we’ve created an 8-step plan to salvage your brand reputation during a crisis.
How to Protect Your Brand’s Reputation in a Crisis
- First, understand the problem.
To deliver effective messaging that protects your brand’s reputation, you need to provide accurate information about the crisis, including what the crisis is, how it happened and what you plan to do to fix it.
You can only provide accurate, clear information – which helps to preserve trust in your brand – if you take the time to fully understand the crisis. Make sure to work with the members of your team who are most knowledgeable to ensure you have all the information you need to act.
- Take ownership
Unless the crisis is caused by rumours about your company that are false – and you’ll probably need evidence to back this – you need to take ownership of the crisis. This means accepting blame, avoiding pointing fingers at other parties, explaining how the crisis came about and expressing regret that it has.
A large part of taking ownership of a crisis is apologizing sincerely to those affected via the media channels they use. You might choose to employ a range of media, including blog posts, social media, and even TV.
- Engage employees
Before you communicate with customers/the public, it’s best to communicate with your employees first. The sooner you communicate with them about the crisis, the less their own perception is influenced by rumours.
Be honest about what’s happened and why and give instructions as to how they should interact if anyone asks – online or offline – about the crisis (and whether they should engage at all). In some cases, media training might be advisable.
By being honest from the beginning and admitting the company’s mistakes, you’re more likely to keep your employees’ good opinion of your brand and remain advocates for its good qualities.
- Be honest
There’s nothing worse you can do than lie – or hide parts of the truth – to your customers and any other stakeholders in a crisis.
If your version of the story doesn’t add up, or customers and investors sense that your company isn’t being fully honest, this destroys trust in your brand. Customers don’t want to support companies that lie to them, and investors don’t want to invest in companies that have a habit of covering up the truth.
So, even if the truth is difficult, be honest. In the long run, it’s going to be far less harmful than if you’re found trying to deceive your audience.
- Respond quickly (and frequently)
The longer you wait to respond to a crisis, the more time you give the rumour mill to spread stories about your company. As this happens, more people become aware of the crisis and develop a negative perception of your brand that’s completely out of your control.
What’s more, not commenting on a crisis – particularly about a mistake your company has made – suggests guilt and arouses suspicion in customers and stakeholders.
So, make sure to respond as soon as you have the tools to do so (i.e., you have enough information to comment on the crisis accurately).
Continue to engage with all the relevant audiences if they need more answers, rather than drop off the face of the earth once you’ve got your messages out. This shows stakeholders you genuinely care and aren’t just responding to the crisis for show.
- Bury online results
The problem with the internet is that nothing can be erased. So, if your company experiences a crisis, the associated negativity might end up ranked on Google results pages forever. This makes it vital to develop a content and social media strategy focused on drowning this negativity out.
In addition to content addressing the issue, make sure to post positive content on your blog – perhaps documenting the changes that are being made to improve the company, or any other positive work the firm is doing.
You may want to create a few press releases to send out too, to get the word out among more platforms than just your website and social media.
- Hire a reputation management company
If you’re dealing with the crisis of all crises – or perhaps you just don’t feel like you have the experience to navigate your brand image out of the crisis – it might be worth hiring a reputation management company.
After all, saving the reputation of companies in trouble is their specialty. Unlike you, they’re professionals at ensuring crises aren’t exacerbated unintentionally, and they’ll use strategies to ensure it won’t impact your brand reputation in the long term.
- Solve the problem and strive to be better
At the end of the day, if a crisis has emerged – and it’s, at least in part, your company’s fault – then there are improvements to be made within your company.
While potentially devastating at the time, crises can be tools for learning. When your weaknesses are highlighted, it’s easy to target what needs to be improved, allowing you to build on your vulnerabilities to become better than before.
Not only does this safeguard against the same crisis from happening again, but it shows your customers, investors, employees, and/or the public, that your apologies aren’t just words.