Golden rules for crisis management ➊ Have a plan: You can’t foresee every eventuality but you need to ensure you can go on the front foot once the need arises. Fail to prepare and prepare to fail.
➋ Act fast: Hoping a
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can bet your crisis will happen on the day when your super spokesperson is on holiday in Australia and not available to do the interview,” advises Hemus. Baer says customers often need to see and hear the CEO as soon as possible in a crisis. “I ask my clients whether they can get a video from their CEO recorded and uploaded to YouTube within two hours, even if that CEO is fishing in Arkansas. If they can’t then they don’t have an adequate social media crisis plan. It’s less about messaging and more about rapid response capability.” As well as good communication, experts agree that honesty is the best policy. Organisations need to come clean about their failings and where mistakes were made. Concealing the truth or trying to wriggle free from any blame merely antagonises customers and turns people off the brand. If you fumble the ball, be brave enough to admit it. “Some companies tie themselves in knots about using the ‘S-word’,” says Duncan. “If you decline to do that it becomes the story rather than actually just accepting some responsibility, saying sorry and moving the debate forward.” Th is is reiterated by Baer: “There’s no place to hide any longer; Toyota’s biggest problem isn’t really the product quality concerns, it’s the lack of transparency and appearance of a ‘cover up’.” Supermarket titan Tesco swallowed its pride and took the blame for a fuel contamination incident three years ago. Motorists fi lling their vehicles at a batch of Tesco
forecourts in the UK soon spluttered to a halt, leaving them with repair bills running into hundreds of pounds. The petrol, linked to one supplier, contained traces of silicon. But instead of blaming the supplier, Tesco took out full-page newspaper adverts apologising for the mistake and offering a refund for the petrol as well as to foot the heft y bill for repairs. They also set up a website and advice line dedicated to offering help on what to do and how to claim for repairs. Hemus commends Tesco for adopting this strategy. “I’m sure the repairs cost them many thousands of pounds but if they had not paid and said it was not their problem but the supplier’s fault, the longer-term damage to their reputation could have been far, far worse.” Having looked at the tactics to deploy and pitfalls to dodge, is there in validity in the first point that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper? Can a 21st century company really expect to survive with this mentality or can sitting on your hands and hoping the storm clouds quickly pass save you from garnering more publicity from a bungled crisis management plan. “Doing nothing may have been a good strategy 10 years ago, but online media means that this definitively isn’t true anymore because anything that has appeared is now stored and referenced via Google,” says Hemus. “Also, all publicity certainly isn’t good publicity and I think anyone who still believes that is living in a fantasyland.”
problem goes away is not an option because there is nowhere to hide nowadays. Be quick to fire up your action plan.
➌ Be honest: It’s OK to say sorry. Consumers respect companies that admit mistakes and vow to put things right.
➍ Use social media: Banal press releases or, heaven forbid, “no comment” quotes rile consumers. Build a following on social media sites now – not in the heat of a crisis. ➎ Good spokespeople: The CEO needs to spread the right message eloquently and effectively. If the CEO isn’t that press savvy, train up senior people who can do the job instead.
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