Crisis is inescapable: How can crisis management consultants manage crisis better?

Although, public relations or PR is a minor part of a business’ strategy, it doesn’t make it insignificant. As a business you can’t expect to not get into unintentional trouble. And therefore, one must deal with negative newsflashes and event problems. To think that your business is crisis-safe is being ignorant and ignorance will affect your relationships with your stakeholders.

Today, especially with public and consumers expecting brands to be transparent, businesses need to own up to the human factor in them. Scandals, negative incidents happen. But what’s more important is how do you deal with it.

But are all problems PR crisis? No. A PR crisis is when the negative about your business outweighs the positive news about it. It can be an internal business issue, or a consumer issue or even a CXO-level issue. How a business deals with a crisis is imperative because at the time all eyes are on you. And it is most certainly going to paint a picture about your brand into your consumers’ heads.

As a business, no expects you to control a crisis, that’s impossible. But as stakeholders, we do expect you to put in right practices and tactics to alleviate the harm a crisis may cause. Because as clients, as customers, as partners, as stakeholders: we want to be associated with brands which we trust and are proud of.

So, how do businesses or PR agencies or crisis management consultants deal with a crisis?

1. To start off, a brand or agency must have a crisis response team in place.
And this is even before your brand hits a crisis. A crisis response team makes sure that right POCs are talking to the media, right spokespeople are representing your brand. They also train people on how to dodge questions that are thrown to them.

A crisis team helps a business to react fast and in a right way with a cohesive communication put across on behalf of the business.

2. Know when to be proactive and when to be reactive.
This is extremely crucial. The crisis management consultants or teams should understand clearly what and how much their contribution should be to mitigate the damage. And more importantly, when dealing with media, should they be proactive or reactive?

And whatever the approach is, all stakeholders must be on the same page. Because media spares no one and you get one shot to get the stain off your name.

3. Clear communication with facts-backed message.
When talking to the public, a business should be certain of two things: first, always talk about facts and second, all stakeholders should talk the same talk. A cohesive communication, backed by statistics is the only way tackle through a crisis. Crisis management consultants then work on how transparently the response can be framed.

4. Know who is the most affected audience and who are you going to talk to.
Once you know what the message is, identify who you are going to communicate that message to, and how. The audience can be media houses, consumers, industry colleagues, employees, or other stakeholders.

Post identifying the audience, the message that has been drafted should now be disseminated. While doing so, special care must be taken when reaching out to media houses. Priority should be media contacts who will take your story forward neutrally and in unbiased light.

The crisis management team should be ready with responses when the dissemination happens because questions will be asked!

5. Keep an eye out on who said what!

Although all hell breaks loose during a crisis, the businesses should closely monitor how the communication is being perceived. Keep track of who are talking about your brand and what are they talking saying.

When crisis erupts online, what does a company need to do?

In today’s digital age, while it is possible to build a brand in days or weeks, it is also quite easy to have its reputation tarnished in hours. Negative conversations spread like wildfire, especially when accompanied with the immediacy of social media. 

A crisis management firm in India as well as abroad needs to help companies set up processes to avoid crisis--but then, can we ever truly anticipate a crisis? Maybe to some extent we can prepare for possible scenarios, but it always helps to know the basics of handling an issue when it first comes to surface while you prepare a management system. 

When a crisis erupts online, regardless of whether it is the company’s fault or not, it needs to be taken care of with a plan of action. Here are a few things to make sure the situation does n’t take a turn for the worse while you’re busy figuring out the process:

1. Acknowledge: When a crisis breaks online, the community expects to be responded to and not ignored. Hence, it is important to acknowledge and say “we know” and “we’re ready to help”, even if you don’t have an explanation at that point in time.

2. Speed matters: An on-ground crisis might take hours or days to get amplified, giving you enough time to plan but when the same happens in the online space then every second counts. Make sure to respond and activate damage control at the earliest. It is beneficial to select and implement an appropriate monitoring system to keep a tab on all conversations.

3. Transparency is the key: You messed up and the whole world is going crazy, burying your head in the sand won’t help. Make sure you’re not deleting messages or comments as it conveys that you have something to hide. 

4. When you apologize, be truly sorry: When you’re addressing your customers’ concerns, put in some effort to give a thoughtful reply to make them feel valued. They’re complaining because they have a problem with the brand or its product, not you. Try not to take the comments personally and make your apology seem genuine.

5. Constantly keep them updated: While you’re fixing the problem and setting in place the plan of action, make sure to keep your social community up to date on the status. It is okay to say, “We’re fixing the issue and will keep you updated”, instead of going cold turkey. 

These steps might not guarantee fixing the problem, but they will help you control the negative amplification. With everything going digital these days, a competent crisis management firm in India can help you maintain your brand’s reputation in case of a crisis. It is up to you how you intend to utilize them. How a crisis is managed reflects on the brand and can make or break it further.