Crisis communications are generally considered a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. These challenges may come in the form of an investigation from a government agency, a criminal allegation, a media inquiry, a shareholders lawsuit, a violation of environmental regulations, or any of a number of other scenarios involving the legal, ethical, or financial standing of the entity. Crisis is an unexpected event in any organizations which creates problems for business. A crisis is a major catastrophe that may occur either naturally or as a result of human error, intervention or even malicious intent.
Crisis Characteristics
While all crises are unique, they do have some common characteristics. They are listed below:
•Element of surprise – For example, Pepsi learning of reports of a syringe found in a Diet Pepsi can. The element of surprise leads to a loss of control. It is hard to think strategically when overwhelmed by unexpected outside events.
•Insufficient Information – The Company does not have all the facts right away, but very quickly finds itself in a position of having to do a lot of explaining.
• The quick pace of events – Things escalate very rapidly. For example, even before Exxon’s crisis centre was up and running in Valdez, the state of Alaska and several other environmental groups were mobilized.
• Intense Scrutiny – Executives are often unprepared for the media spotlight, which is instantaneous, as answers and results normally take time.
How to Prepare Crisis
• Accept and involve the public as a legitimate partner
• Plan carefully and evaluate your efforts
• Listen to the public's specific concerns
• Be honest, frank and open
• Coordinate and collaborate with other credible sources
• Meet the needs of the media
• Speak clearly and with compassion
Whom to Notify in an Emergency
The list should contain the names and numbers of everyone on the crisis team as well as numbers to call externally such as the fire and police departments. The list should be kept updated as people leave the company or change responsibilities.
An Approach to Media Relations: The cardinal rule for communicating with all constituencies in a crisis should be “Tell It All, Tell It Fast”. If the organization has done a good job of building relations with the media when times are good, reporters will be more understanding when a crisis occurs. The person who has the best relationships with individual reporters is probably the right person to get involved with them during a crisis.
For example, having a reserve of goodwill with the media is what helped Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol crisis.
A strategy for Notifying Employees: Employees should be seen as analogous to families in a personal crisis. Employees finding out from the media about something that affects the organization can be likened to a family member hearing about a personal problem from an outsider. An organization should take pains to ensure that a plan for employee notification is created with employee communication professionals in advance and is included in the overall crisis plan.
A Location to Serve as Crisis Headquarters: A contingency location should be determined in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack affecting the safety or security of the chosen location. Gathering the appropriate technology like computers, fax machines, cell phones etc, as quickly as possible when a crisis hits is also important. This headquarters location should be shared ahead of time with all key internal and external constituencies. All information should be ideally centralized through the office. Other lines of communication should then flow through the headquarters for the duration of the crisis.
A Description of the Plan: Companies should have their crisis plans documented in writing. In addition to communication strategy, a crisis plan should address logistical details as well, for example, how and where the families of victims should be accommodated in the case of an airline crash.
Select a Crisis Team
A crisis team should include:
• The president
• The executive director of communications
• General counsel or his or her designee
• Other staff, as appropriate
Organizing a team of staff members who will be on the scene in an emergency is an important part of a crisis communication plan. Include on your team the person(s) responsible for taking action in the absence of president and one or two other staff members whose expertise might be helpful in a crisis, for example, security or technical experts.
Communicating during Crisis
Get control of the situation – The first step is for the appropriate managers to get control of the situation as soon as possible. This involves defining the real problem with the use of reliable information and then setting measurable communication objectives for handling it. Failing to take this seemingly obvious, but crucial first step can be devastating to crisis management effort.
Gather as much information as possible - Directly related to defining the problem, the gathering of relevant information is crucial to addressing a crisis. This involves managing the information coming from several sources. As information becomes available, someone should be assigned to mine this information.
Set up a centralized Crisis Management Centre – Crisis management centre will serve as the platform for all communication during the crisis. All communications about the crisis should come from this one centralized location. The centre should include adequate computers, phone services, fax machines, etc.
Communicate early and often – The organization’s spokesperson needs to say whether he or she can as soon as possible. Silence and delayed responses should be avoided. Companies need to put good inside people on the front lines rather than hired guns and should encourage managers to adopt a team approach with others involved in crisis communication.
Get inside the media’s head – Members of the media in and extremely competitive environment, which explains why they all want to get the story first. They are also accustomed to a crisis environment in their work. They look for stories with villains, victims and visuals.
Communicate directly with the affected constituencies – Employees are likely to be the best media sources in the crisis as each of them act as a goodwill ambassador for the firm. Hence, the employees need to be communicated first about the crisis. External constituencies need to be contacted as well, which includes customers, shareholders, communities, suppliers, emergency services, experts and officials. All the available technologies should be used to communicate with them including e-mail, voice mail, faxes, direct satellite broadcasts, and online services.
Keep the business going – Except the top management, which is involved in dealing with the crisis, others should work to keep the business going. Managers should plan ahead replacements for employees working in crisis team.
Make plans to avoid another crisis immediately – Post crisis, corporate communications executives should work with other managers to ensure the organization will be even better prepared the next time it is faced with the crisis. Companies should realize that there is no better time than the period immediately following a crisis to prepare for the next one because motivation is high to learn from mistakes made the first time.
Experience
My family invested 3 lakh rupees in a Margadarsi chit fund private Ltd in 2005. But the company faced allegations in March 2007 regarding to the return of interests that are deposited by the depositors. This caused waves in minds of investors who started asking questions to Margadarsi. But Margadarsi took time to react. The chairman Mr.Ramoji Rao himself gave assurance to the depositors by giving a paper as well as television statements. After a few weeks the company successfully proved its innocence in court of law. The company was very successful to regain its customers’ confidence after overcoming the crisis situation.
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