Speak but be quiet. How to build crisis communication
How to successfully resolve a critical situation without damaging your reputation
In essence, a crisis is a situation that doesn't fit into a person's or a company's previous experience. So often, getting over a crisis is very tough if we rely on common skills or verified knowledge. There's no time to really think it through- you are riding a bicycle, the bicycle is on fire, you are on fire, everything is on fire, and you are in hell…
However, skilled communicators have their protocol when dealing with a crisis, akin to the actions of algorithms for catastrophe doctors. It's designed to minimize fussing, mobilize resources, and control the most nonstandard situation. The following steps will keep you out of a stupor (or vice versa: not burning out at high speeds of a steep bend).
Acknowledge the problem
The biggest mistake at the beginning stages of a crisis is to keep quiet and pretend nothing is happening. The first thing you need to do is to acknowledge that the problem exists and determine its essence. Only afterward does it make sense to make any decision. Perhaps a detailed analysis will show it's not worth rushing into a massive reaction, but keeping a close eye on a situation and readiness to respond when necessary might be enough. But this behavior model needs to be founded on facts, not your desire to avoid the problem passively. If you notice the crisis turning toward danger, think about the scale of the problem and involve all necessary tools to solve it.
Monitor properly
During a crisis, it's vital to keep track of the informational field, monitoring the content in which a company or a person was mentioned and its dynamics. Online monitoring services provided by specialized agencies will help you do that. Monitoring summaries will provide operational information and paint a picture of the type of communication in social media, chat rooms, and comments on news sites. If you don't monitor reviews about your business regularly, it's time to start doing so during a crisis.
Delegate
Handling a crisis is not a one-person job, even if you are the company's owner and CEO. Having a crisis managing team of key employees with all relevant information would be best. A communications manager or a reputation expert plays the most crucial part here. He is the one who informs the crisis management team about an actual problem, analyzes incoming information, monitors the informational field, describes the current situation status and possible scenarios of development, takes the initiative, offers concrete solutions to the team and the CEO, and is responsible for choosing optimal tools and a variety of channels of communication. The person in charge of the company is responsible for making decisions based on offered initiatives, but he can't generate them independently.
Decide on the public speakers
When a crisis management team is formed, public speakers are also chosen. They have the right to comment on a crisis publicly. Unlike the myriad public speakers working during ordinary times, there should be only a few during a crisis. The level of the speaker commenting on the situation should be as high as the level of the crisis escalation. Low profile topics can be closed by a low-profile company expert. However, if the reputation of your entire company is threatened, the owner or the CEO should get the job done.
Be a subject, not an object
Don't wait for your stakeholders, journalists, and government agencies to ask you all at once what's going on in your company. Be proactive. Work out key announcements and launch them first before anyone else will do it for you. Let people know you know the problem and do everything possible to solve it.
Even if you don't have all the necessary information at the beginning stages and are not ready to announce a final solution, show your stakeholders you keep your hand on a pulse and are taking the situation under control. It's better to make five small announcements throughout a day than one exhausting communication after five days of a crisis.
Proactive communication is the best remedy for rumors, fakes, and manipulations.
Use all relevant channels
During a crisis, make your position known through ALL appropriate channels. Besides the company's official site and social media pages, it may be an email blast, top managers' pages on social media, communication resources of professional associations belonging to the company, and so on.
Your target is to fill the informational space with your response to what's happening.
At the same time, in the moment of a crisis, communication tools should be taken under stricter control. It's worth explaining to all the company's staff who is authorized to make official announcements and where and who needs to redirect the inquiry to the communication team quickly. Such close attention from the press can be very stressful for employees who often interact with clients or government agencies (it could be certain bank branches, chain stores, or post office branches).
So, while working on the issue of communication control, try helping and supporting your employees, not adding extra "don'ts" and strict instructions to their load. It's a time and effort-consuming task, but it's worth it- any statement from any employee may be used against the company (especially during a crisis).
Open a dialogue with the media
If someone got ahead of you and the news about the crisis came out sooner than your company's official statement, be ready for the news to recycle. In this situation, it's crucial to determine the source, establish a constructive dialogue with the editor and supply her with the current relevant updates on the situation. The sooner you do this, the sooner you will take the informational field under control.
While supplying the news sites and the informational agencies with the news about your crisis, go an extra step and provide well-known facts and background information: the reader should always have a complete picture (otherwise, they will fill in the gaps from the less reliable sources).
Stay in direct contact with the stakeholders
If the situation is likely to become an acute crisis, direct communication with the key stakeholders must work with their expectations and concerns. It helps if creating a map of stakeholders has been completed prior, and you have a perfect idea of their expectations and the sore spots.
Direct communication with the stakeholders is crucial in difficult situations when the company's existence is on the line. It may be a risk of frozen accounts, seizure of assets, possible bankruptcy, technological issues causing non-fulfillment of obligations or data leakage, raid attacks, etc. In this type of communication, make them aware of what's happening and name concrete steps and how long it will take to stabilize the situation.
Follow the 10/90 rule
When you speak about a crisis, 10% of attention should be spent on a problem and 90%-on the solution. Be brief in stating what happened and very detailed about what your company is doing to overcome the crisis. It concerns your entire content: printed word, video address, social media posts, phone calls, and any other communication format.
Act tactically, think strategically
A crisis is a natural step in developing a company (and a personality). It may seem the fire of a crisis should be put out at any cost because your company is taking serious losses now. The problem will be solved tomorrow, but the market, clients, and partners will stay. If the ground around your company is left burnt after the victory over the crisis comes, the prospects for a successful business will drastically shrink for you. It's crucial to overcome the crisis, but more important is not to lose the strategic focus in the heat of a fight and remember why and whom your business works for.
While making tactical decisions, model an ideal exit from the crisis with the least amount of losses and a possible reputation gain. The helpful question here is: "What will our stakeholders think of our company after the crisis?" This point of view brings professionalism, decency, fairness, and responsibility (of the entire company and its top management) to the foreground.
The steps described here will assist and help you. It's essential to remember that your work's overall effectiveness in a crisis is directly connected to how well your company completed its communications homework.
A competent map of stakeholders, reputation risks, a crisis management team with public speakers, and a complete package of channels and communication tools ready at the start of a crisis will save you precious time to focus on looking for solutions and not a loss (but possibly an increase) of your reputation capital.
Enjoyed reading this guide. Excellent points. Two I will share for commenters here. 1. "The biggest mistake at the beginning stages of a crisis is to keep quiet and pretend nothing is happening. The first thing you need to do is to acknowledge that the problem exists and determine its essence." 2. The "10% - 90% rule!"