Most business leaders don’t enjoy thinking about what they’ll do in crisis situations. Natural disasters, outages, data breaches, workplace accidents, harm to customers, employee misbehavior, a misstep by a CEO: these events are tough to anticipate, and even tougher to talk about.
But your organization will likely experience at least one crisis event in its lifetime, and it will happen when it’s least expected. The good news is, you can prepare now to keep a crisis from destroying the trust you’ve built with your audience, setting back your mission or cutting into your bottom line. The key is partnering with your in-house public relations team or external agency partner on a good PR strategy that includes a crisis communications plan.
But what are the building blocks of a good crisis communications plan? At CMG, here are the big questions our PR lead will always ask when helping a client formulate a strategy for anticipating, preparing for, and responding to the unexpected.
1) What kind of events might directly impact your business or mission?
This is fairly straightforward. It might sound anxiety-inducing (or terribly familiar, if you have anxiety and tend to spiral), but it’s helpful to sit down and brainstorm what disaster scenarios might impact your business.
For example, a healthcare provider with a brick-and-mortar clinic might anticipate natural disasters in a specific location; an active shooter; data breaches; malpractice; staff misbehavior; workplace accidents; police activity around the building; new legislation that affects which services or medications they can provide, or affects the prices of drugs; and more.
A technology company with a remote workforce, meanwhile, might be better off prioritizing scenarios that involve data breaches and outages, and focusing less on the likelihood of an active shooter. They might want to think about natural disasters affecting the location where their servers are housed, a CEO misspeaking or behaving inappropriately or an employee stealing sensitive data.
The point is, every organization is unique, and it’s worth taking time to think about what events might possibly impact yours.
2) What expectations do your people have of your organization?
“We’re a company that makes a consumer product, what does this national protest movement have to do with us?”
“Why should our clients care what our CEO does, as long as they’re satisfied with the work we’re doing?”
“We’re already overwhelmed by this hurricane flooding our offices, we don’t have time to think about what to say to our social media audiences.”
These are natural thoughts to have, and it can be overwhelming when trying to anticipate every possible scenario you may need to respond to as an organization.
However, if you’ve been doing your brand marketing right, your audience sees you as more than just a product or service, for better or for worse. Therefore, in order to . What sort of emotional need does your organization fill for your audience, customers, clients, or other stakeholders?
Those needs might be different for different audiences, but to get you started:
- Are you an insurance provider built on the promise that you will be there for your customers in their worst moments?
- Are you a nonprofit that must ensure that donors trust in your ability to deliver on a mission?
- Are you a healthcare company offering hope for a cure to a deadly disease?
- Are you a technology platform that offers people a way to connect with people they love?
- Are you a veterinary science business that gives people more time with beloved pets?
Think of what human needs you fulfill and the emotions that you evoke in the best of times–and let that help you think about what people might reasonably expect you to say or do in the worst of times.
3) What do our audiences really want to know?
Every audience is different, but above all: tell the truth. If you don’t know the answer to a question, or you’re unsure what will happen next, it’s perfectly acceptable to say that a situation is evolving, and you will provide information as it becomes available.
However, in order to determine how much or how little to say, it’s important to ask yourself:
- Does the event threaten your operations or ability to deliver for clients, customers, or other stakeholders?
- Was anyone harmed?
- Who are you speaking to?
- What would each audience really need at this moment? Is it reassurance, staunch defense of their interests, or practical instructions on what to do next?
This will help you prepare a template for what to say in each anticipated scenario (we call this a “holding statement”).
4) How does our audience get information?
The previous two questions can help you determine what to say (or not say) in response to different situations. Now, how do you get the word out?
Different audiences get information in different ways. Just like in your standard marketing and communications, you have to understand where your audiences live and where they will want to see updates or communication from you.
For example: if you’re a healthcare organization, putting a statement out about something that has happened at your office is something you’ll need to do in a variety of channels. If it is something that affected your staff, you’ll need them to know all of the facts right away in a concise, focused, clear email or text communication. You will also need to ensure your patients or clients hear about it from you first if the event disrupts operations or makes things look different for them; this can be done via your newsletter and any communication portal you use as well as on social media. If the event was significant enough that it may get news attention (i.e. a natural disaster, a protest, or a violent threat), you will want to prepare a statement to post on your website or disseminate directly to the media as appropriate.
Who are our spokespeople?
Before any type of crisis happens, it’s critical to determine who is going to be the face and voice of your organization to your customers, clients, board members, shareholders, funders, and the media. For more structured, long-form statements (such as an email to your clients or customers), it’s often best practice to have this come directly from the CEO. However, depending on the situation, there are many others who could be your spokesperson:
- Your Vice President of Marketing or Communications, especially when communicating with media and responding to breaking news;
- Your Chief Technology Officer, when responding to an outage or hack and detailing what steps the company is taking to alleviate it;
- Your HR director, when communicating internally with employees about sudden events that directly affect their work environment and will mean significant changes going forward.
What to Say in a Crisis
Every crisis is different, and every client is different, so it’s imperative to lean on your communications team or partner agency to figure out exactly what the answers to all of these questions are, and to help you prepare a plan. However, it’s always important to know what you need to say about any crisis affecting your company.
Here are the key components of a good crisis holding statement:
- State what happened in a clear, concise, truthful way. (“At [TIME] and [DATE] at [LOCATION], [EVENT] occurred.”)
- State how the company responded or is responding. (“We have taken XX steps, and plan to XX.”)
- Apologize if a company representative or system is at fault. (“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused.”)
- Express empathy for those affected, whether your company is at fault or not. (“We understand this is incredibly frustrating for you,” or “Our sincerest condolences go out to those affected by [EVENT].”)
- Provide information on when updates will come. (“We will be regularly providing updates on our social media channels,” etc.)
How We Help Clients Prepare for Unexpected Crises
All of this information is here to give you a starting point. Even if you have an in-house communications team, it’s almost always beneficial to partner with an outside public relations partner agency to bring fresh perspective to your planning. At Conway Marketing Group, we provide a full suite of public relations services, which often includes a good crisis communications strategy.
During our onboarding process, we will always begin by establishing who the spokespeople are, where your audiences get information, and the biggest issues and challenges your company might face. This helps us understand exactly who we need to reach and how, what crises might come up, and how we can respond to each scenario.
Our experienced PR team has gotten clients through a wide variety of unexpected events, and helped them maintain their reputation and even grow through it. We know how to anticipate possible roadblocks and adapt messaging as needed.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you set up a solid crisis communications plan, contact us today.
