Businesses, individuals and reportedly even the stock exchange, are still reeling from the aftermath of the global Microsoft systems’ outage last week (Friday 19th July 2024).
Somewhat ironically, human error at cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was responsible for the update malfunction that caused the crisis. Nearly a quarter of the company’s value was wiped out in hours.
What is a PR crisis?
Unfortunately, these things do happen, and human error and/or technology are often at the source.
Other kinds of PR crises include adverse comments on social media or rating sites such as Trustpilot or Glassdoor. Financial crises, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, product recalls, customer incidents, criminal activities such as theft, and personnel matters such as key or mass redundancies all fall under the gamut of a crisis.
How you respond to a crisis can make all the difference between success and failure. So, what can a business do to make sure they’re ahead of the game, avoiding unnecessary reputational and financial damage?
Strong media relations and social media policies
You will be in a much better position if you have already built and established strong, trusted relationships with key journalists. This can go a long way in a crisis.
Failing to plan is planning to fail
Don’t wait until you’re in the middle of a crisis to plan for it. It’s going to be stressful enough. Prevention is better than cure, so follow these steps and you should avoid escalation and save time, money and effort – and most crucially, help protect your reputation.
It might even be an opportunity for the business to shine .
Every business should have a business continuity plan, incorporating elements such as IT disaster recovery and a PR/reputation management crisis response plan. That way, your PR advisers handling the crisis, will know exactly who to contact, how and when – and what to expect along the way.
Eight elements of your crisis plan
- Identify your crisis management team, including PR and Legal. A spokesperson from a key industry body could also prove invaluable. Make sure you have current emergency contact details including land lines and even postal addresses – and that everyone knows who the next contact in line is, should the primary person be unavailable.
- Identify all stakeholders, including customers, suppliers and key news and social media.
- Work with heads of departments to assess potential risks, predict possible outcomes and put plans in place to address them.
- Prepare to answer how you will:
- acknowledge the problem
- communicate to the public
- fix the problem/mitigate the damage.
- Identify key spokespeople and consider how soon you need to respond to the problem.
- Test your plan in a simulated environment so everyone understands the process and roles.
- Review your plans for social media, website, media etc to work out where you might need additional resources.
- Keep abreast of current laws and regulations that might affect how you can respond to a crisis.
A responsible, human attitude
Trust is key. People don’t want to do business with people and organisations they can’t trust.
Your first communications should express empathy, understanding and reassurance. Communicate factually to stakeholders the actions you are taking and when.
Even if it’s not your fault, as was the case with Microsoft, an apology goes a long way in communicating to your audiences that you are thinking of them and are genuinely sorry for what has happened. Any apology needs to be honest and heartfelt however as your audience will see through anything that’s insincere.
Respond quickly to establish credibility and to reassure people that you have the situation under control.
Create a narrative that demonstrates that you are operating in the best interest of your various communities. Be truthful. Stick to the facts and avoid offering opinions.
Write a press release and Q&A document so everyone can stick to the official line. Decide on spokespeople and refine key messaging. Ensure open channels of communication, taking advantage of any relevant communications channels such as your website, social media, email and post.
Make sure your tone is human. We don’t want to read that ‘we anticipate a resolution is forthcoming’. Let’s get human, people! A down-to-earth tone is best – particularly on social media. Put yourselves in the shoes of your audiences and address the aspects that they care about.
Crisis over, what next?
It doesn’t just stop once the crisis is under control. Depending on the severity of the crisis, businesses should plan for months of subsequent reputational damage control.
Follow up with clients and maybe offer a discount or some form of compensation.
Feed back your learnings into an updated crisis management plan. Don’t let them go to waste, or you will end up making the same mistakes a second time.
Navigating choppy waters with bClear
We’ve had to deal with our fair share of client crises over the decades, including redundancies, negative reviews from disgruntled ex-employees, IT malware hacks and, of course, the inevitable IT fails.
But we are cool of head and competent in skill, which helps our trusting clients sail more smoothly through the choppy waters of any crisis.
Read our next blog on: How to be seen and heard when news avoidance is increasing (bclear.co.uk)