A well-prepared crisis communication plan is The Importance essential for businesses to effectively manage and navigate a PR crisis. It provides a structured framework for responding to issues promptly, accurately, and empathetically. Crisis communications plans minimize damage while preserving trust.
While the overall content of a crisis plan
will vary depending on your industry and a variety of other factors, most will follow a similar template outlined below:
The Anatomy of a Crisis Communication Plan
1. Assess the risks. Preparing for any kind of potential risk creates a better chance of addressing crises that might impact your business or industry in the future.
2. Build a crisis management team and designate spokespeople. A crisis management team will identify the person in charge of crisis management, a designated spokesperson to address the media and/or public, PR professionals to craft responses and navigate media inquiries, and the heads of other departments who may need to assist during a crisis.
3. Develop communication strategies and channels
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In B2B, you must contact various stakeholders during crises. These include partners, clients, and any other agency or government entities related to your industry. Keep an accessible contact list on hand to promptly reach these external stakeholders and officials when a crisis hits.
Similarly, preparing a media list and messaging in advance will help you quickly modify and share information. Your messaging should stick to the facts, remain transparent about what happened, outline next steps, and provide an opportunity or contact information to field questions.
Ensure your messages are received by using multiple communication channels. This includes sending press releases or media alerts as necessary, creating a landing page with frequent updates, identifying appropriate social media channels, and creating email content. Internal communications are also important to keep employees informed.
4. Create a crisis comms asset folder. Maintain organization by housing your crisis comms plan, contact lists, messaging, and other relevant information in one folder that is accessible to your crisis team. Drop additional assets into this folder as you collaborate and finalize them.
5. Practice, practice, practice. Media training
will play a major role in preparing your crisis team ahead of time. Ideally, your designated spokesperson will be a familiar face for contacts and should feel comfortable speaking to the media and/or large groups of people.
As we learned from the OpenAI example, your team should know how to tactfully respond to difficult questions. Phrases like “I’ll check that information and get back to you,” and “Let me confirm with my team,” or even “We’re working on those details” may not deliver the responses people are looking for, but they provide your team with a chance to craft a better response in the future without losing credibility.
Public relations professionals will typically create briefing documents ahead of interviews to provide relevant information about the journalist, outlet, and expected topics of conversation. These briefing docs will usually include a list of key points to mention during the interview, along with potential questions and approved responses. Ensure every executive and leader at your company is aligned on messaging by providing them with a similar list of questions and responses they should know during and after a crisis.
While your spokesperson may be ready to
speak to the public, the rest of your team must understand the process of working during a crisis. Run a few practice drills with your crisis management team to ensure your team knows what to do and when. This also gives you a chance to iron out any problems.
6. Review and adjust. The lifecycle of a crisis may seem long while you experience it, but it will eventually end. Once the dust settles, meet with your crisis management team to discuss what did and didn’t work, making adjustments for future potential crises.
Whether your business operates in crisis mode for a few days or several months, be sure to maintain constant communication with your stakeholders, the press, and anyone impacted by the crisis far into the future. This will help rebuild your brand’s trust and credibility.
Related read: Crisis Communication 101 for B2B Companies—with Step by Step Crisis Reaction Instructions
Other Examples of Businesses Facing Crises
Reviewing instances of good and bad responses during crises can help businesses create their crisis communications plans.
Spicy (Chicken) Nugget of Wisdom
In one major example from earlier this year, fast food chain restaurant Wendy’s announced it would experiment with dynamic pricing. This caused backlash on social media and an avalanche of media coverage.
Dynamic pricing refers to changing the price of
goods or services in response to demand. It isn’t even a new concept. For example, airlines have used dynamic pricing models for years, although getting backlinks from an expert site most people don’t notice until they need to book a last-minute flight. And more recently, dynamic ticket pricing for concerts and events reached a boiling point, angering fans across music genres and leading lawmakers to get involved by proposing bills to address the issue.
The problem for Wendy’s wasn’t in the dynamic
pricing; it was the media running away with the wrong messaging. When Wendy’s said it would implement surge pricing like Uber, customers became furious at the idea that their food could cost more.
Dynamic ≠ surge. Wendy’s backtracked and tried
to add some clarity to the situation, emphasizing the model they wanted to explore was dynamic pricing, not surge pricing. Similar to happy hours or BOGO deals, this meant prices might go up during peak hours, but they could also go down when demand was low. Unfortunately agb directory for Wendy’s, the public’s perception got ahead of them and created an entirely different narrative.
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