How will your company respond when something goes wrong? Read more about why a crisis communication plan is essential.
As any emergency management agency will tell you, the time to prepare for a crisis is before it happens. But among the checklist boxes, do you have a communications plan?
Emotions run high during a sudden event, be it small or large, but a company’s ability to communicate clearly and calmly about what occurred is critical, as is a trained staff ready to implement the plan. Knowing how and when to respond to an event takes away at least some of the stress, with thoughtful, effective, and strategic responses across diverse messaging platforms.
It’s a question of ‘when’, not ‘if’
Every business should have a crisis plan, and one that hasn’t yet created such a plan and trained its employees regarding its implementation is jockeying with fate. Why? First, a well-executed plan helps protect a company’s reputation by ensuring timely and consistent messaging, preventing misinformation, and maintaining transparency with people directly or indirectly involved with the incident. Second, it is essential to be out in front of information that might be only partially correct, not up to date, or fed by rumors. It’s far more difficult to issue undo misinformation than it is to offer regular updates that share facts promptly. Finally, an effective crisis plan is a sign that a business recognizes its own responsibility and accountability in the long term. It also safeguards public trust through personal and genuine responses, something that is difficult to achieve in this world of AI.
Thus, potentially fatal damage to a brand’s reputation can, to a certain degree, be mitigated by anticipating potential crises, outlining clear communication protocols, and practicing them in advance.
The way your company responds reflects how the public perceives the crisis
Here’s how:
By maintaining trust: During a crisis, customers and the public will look to you for reassurance and information. A clear communication plan helps build and maintain trust by providing timely and accurate updates.
By controlling the narrative: In a crisis, information spreads rapidly, often fueled by rumors. A communication plan helps control the narrative by ensuring your message is the first to reach the audience and addresses all concerns.
By empowering employees: A crisis communication plan also benefits internal employees by providing them with the knowledge of who to talk to and what information to share, fostering trust and confidence during a crisis.
Your crisis communication plan’s structure matters
PRE-CRISIS communication: This is the time to be prepared, to gather your company managers, owners, or stakeholders and discuss risk analysis, the formation of a crisis committee, and the crafting of contingency plans. Goal: To be able to react quickly whenever it is needed because of the earlier prevention.
REACTIVE crisis communication: This part of the plan addresses the unexpected events. Reacting calmly but quickly is all about giving the right information to those involved, defining the problem, and keeping the public trust through openness and empathy. Goal: Share information regularly, factually, and with appropriate verbiage.
POST-CRISIS communication: After the crisis has subsided, it is time to return to those directly and indirectly involved, as well as employees, to look at what was done well and what was done poorly, and how to improve strategies for the future. A post-crisis element serves as proof of the company’s accountability and builds relationships. Goal: Reflect on the past, recalibrate for the future.
INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC communication: Tourism and community-based events where a diverse range of people may be present, or involved in potentially risky activities, will require a different crisis communication plan than that of an office setting, although the pillars of messaging are the same. Think about different scenarios, what emergency systems may be deployed, and if the company may need to be communicating with those entities before issuing public updates.
Not sure where to start? The Ovibos team is ready to help craft a framework for your business crisis communications plan, setting your company up for success before an incident occurs. Contact us and we’ll have a conversation to help determine what type of plan will work best for you.