A PR PERSPECTIVE:CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Customers of a certain Mobile network provider have expressed their frustrations following an SMS they received from one of the local retail operators. The content of the SMS was promoting the launch of an online shopping platform of the retailer.

Promotional messages can be irksome, especially if the recipient is not given an opt out option. It gets even more frustrating if you are clueless as to how the sender got access to your contact details-frustrating and questionable. Owing to the fact that people use their cellphones to access their bank accounts through mobile banking, the uproar caused by users of the mobile network on Facebook comes as no surprise. This incident has compromised the reputation of both the retailer and network operator.

Every organization is going to face a significant crisis once or twice a year and a flurry of minor obstacles. It is inevitable. As we’ve seen with the most recent pandemic and global market meltdown, no organization is immune to a crisis. No matter how long it takes for a brand to build credibility or profitability, it can all be undone within seconds of a crisis. Having a communications plan helps soothe widespread fear and concerns from customers and employees, and it can help reduce the negative impact from the press.

Here are five crucial steps that will help you build a reliable crisis management strategy.

Form a Solutions Team

Identify your key spokesperson and brief them on what’s happening as well as how your brand is going to move forward. Then move quickly to respond internally with those messages to your employees. The point here is to quickly alleviate any internal fears or concerns in the workforce and align employees with any external messaging and protocols. Organizational members must be prepared to talk to the news media during a crisis.

Assessment and Evaluation

Carefully assess the impact of the crisis on the organization’s brand and image. This can be done by going through social media platforms and other media channels to have an idea of what is being said about your organization with regards to the crisis at hand. You’ll want to determine how your decisions will impact business, revenue and overall brand reputation.

Position your organization

Now that you have a thorough understanding of the impact this crisis can have on your company; you should have a clearer idea of how to position your corporate stance accordingly. An organization may create a separate web site for the crisis or designate a section of its current web site for the crisis. Taylor and Kent’s (2007) research finds that having a crisis web site is the best practice of crisis response. The site should be designed prior to the crisis. This requires the crisis team to anticipate the types of crises an organization will face, and the types of information needed for the web site.

Crisis Response

The crisis response is what management does and says after the crisis hits. Public relations plays a critical role in the crisis response by helping to develop the messages that are sent to various publics. Alignment, especially from a PR perspective, is necessary to avoid inconsistences within your corporate response that could further damage your reputation or appear dishonest. Communicate through all channels possible and do not shy away from “over communicating”. Anything said repeatedly is seldom forgotten.

Reputation Repair

Mitigating the negative connotations of your brand is only one aspect of a PR crisis strategy. A number of researchers in public relations, communication, and marketing have shed light on how to repair the reputational damage a crisis inflicts on an organization. At the center of this research is a list of reputation repair strategies. Bill Benoit (1995; 1997) has done the most to identify the reputation repair strategies. He analyzed and synthesized strategies from many different research traditions that shared a concern for reputation repair.

Coombs (2007) integrated the work of Benoit with others to create a master list that integrated various writings into one list. The reputation repair strategies vary in terms of how much they accommodate victims of this crisis (those at risk or harmed by the crisis). Accommodate means that the response focuses more on helping the victims than on addressing organizational concerns. The master list arranges the reputation repair strategies from the least to the most accommodative reputation repair strategies.

See below the Master List of Reputation Repair Strategies by Coombs (2007):

1.Attack the accuser: crisis manager confronts the person or group claiming something is wrong with the organization.

2.Denial: crisis manager asserts that there is no crisis.

3. Scapegoat: crisis manager blames some person or group outside of the organization for the crisis.

4. Excuse: crisis manager minimizes organizational responsibility by denying intent to do harm and/or claiming inability to control the events that triggered the crisis. Provocation: crisis was a result of response to some one else’s actions. Defeasibility: lack of information about events leading to the crisis situation. Accidental: lack of control over events leading to the crisis situation. Good intentions: organization meant to do well

5. Justification: crisis manager minimizes the perceived damage caused by the crisis.

6. Reminder: crisis managers tell stakeholders about the past good works of the organization.

7. Ingratiation: crisis manager praises stakeholders for their actions.

8. Compensation: crisis manager offers money or other gifts to victims.

9. Apology: crisis manager indicates the organization takes full responsibility for the crisis and asks stakeholders for forgiveness.

Conclusion

A crisis becomes a very visible turning point in the life of an organization. The manner in which the crisis is handled can make or break a business. The importance of promoting a proactive culture to crisis in organizations cannot be stressed enough. Having a well thought out crisis management plan with trained staff that know how to implement it will be one major step towards bringing crisis situations to a successful conclusion.

If you would like to add to these strategies, please write to us.

Bibliography

Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany: State of University of New York Press.

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, Managing, and responding (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

Taylor, M. & Kent, M.L. (2007). Taxonomy of mediated crisis responses. Public review, 33, 140-146.