Do you know how vulnerable your organization is to a PR crisis? Nowadays, nobody is safe. But there is something worse before the crisis: the silence.
The evolution of media outlets, digital platforms and social media have made almost impossible to stay in silence during a crisis situation. Different audiences will not understand - neither they should have - why there’s no information from the organization and it may be possible that something that was under control, becomes a critical situation due to the communication underestimating with internal and external audiences.
Cases like Volkswagen, Chipotle, and FIFA are clear cases where the management and resolution strategies were not aligned; by not saying in time and form how, what and when it’s being done and by the correct person in the precise moment.
How could those problems be solved without major consequences?
Having a PR crisis manual and other management and resolution protocols may help the organization to survive a crisis situation, but if the whole process lacks a parallel communication strategy, focused on keeping all internal and external audiences and key stakeholders informed, there’s risk of:
There are basic elements to consider while planning and implementing an effective communication in crisis strategy, aligned to the management and resolution strategies:
Prevention y anticipation
We have already said it: everyone is vulnerable. So the ideal thing is to take advantage of the quiet times to prepare the organization to face an eventual crisis.
The first thing is to design a Crisis Communications Team which will take care of implementing the strategy. Having a communications and PR firm will allow having expert, external eyes that make an assessment of the capacities of members of the organization and seize them in the communication strategy. With this team formed, the next step is to identify the spokespersons that will deliver the messages to key audiences and stakeholders.