Crises can range from any number of things, from defects in products and the resulting product recall, to accidents or having to announce a swathe of redundancies. A crisis could be technology related, like a data security breach or a failure in company systems, or it could be related to the financial operations of a company – plummeting share price or fraud. It might even be HR related, an errant employee causing havoc or an employee sending out a mass email revealing intimate details of a fellow employee’s antics. There have been a number of similar stories in the UK press over the last few years.
The key thing in a crisis is to be prepared and to think through every eventuality. If you are an airline, you have to think of the worst case scenario – a crash – and then put in a plan that will enable the company to deal with the crash from a communications perspective. This might involve being able to organise a press conference at the drop of a hat, set up a telephone line for affected parties and structure communications programmes for each audiences. These plans need to be up and running immediately.
The key thing to remember is that communications around a crisis need to be clear, concise, open and honest. If you are at fault, you must admit liability as soon as you are aware of it and prior to that, communicate that the matter is being investigated and all parties will be informed of progress as soon as information is received. Spokespeople need to engender trust in the audience and as such need to be well briefed and deliver a convincing performance in-front of journalists.
Some general dos and don’ts include:
Do
• Do think through every possible crisis scenario and be prepared for it – a thorough crisis manual is essential
• Do think of all target audiences – it’s not just the media, there are internal and other external audiences to think of too
• Do put holding statements in place in case of bad news – these will keep the media at bay until you can put the full crisis management plan into place
• Do hold your hands up to anything that you might be accountable for, but stress that you are doing everything right to investigate/ rectify matters
• Do have well briefed spokespeople who can deliver key messages clearly and effectively
Don’t
• Don’t try and mask bad news – being upfront and honest is invariably the best approach
• Don’t fire-fight – try and be as well prepared as possible
• Don’t fob the press off with vague generalisations – be precise and succinct
• Don’t hide away – make all spokespeople as available as possible