Five Steps to Meeting the Crisis Communications Challenge

So many organisations say that they have prepared and rehearsed their communications response to a crisis, yet time after time we see real crises breaking in the media with no comment from the organisation at the centre of the problem. Of course there might be good reasons why you don’t want to comment, but if you do want to issue a statement then you need to have the processes, skills and tools to do so promptly.

Follow these five steps to check whether your organisation can meet the communications challenge:

1: We have a documented crisis communications plan which is understood by all those involved in the process.

This almost goes without saying, but I’m constantly surprised how many organisation stumble at step one. The plan needs to clear, concise and complete. 

2: We have holding statements that can be issued by the Comms team without any further sign off. 

Yes, you read that right - holding statements need to be prepared and signed off ahead of the crisis. There might be hundreds of things that can go wrong, but there will only be a handful of responses required, so work out the wording beforehand. Then run those statements past the senior management team and ensure that they all understand that these statements will be issued by the Comms team without further sign off. A crisis is not the time for the CEO to be fiddling with the wording of a holding statement!

3: We have rehearsed the plan and we are confident that the plan will work in a real incident. 

If you haven’t rehearsed it in a crisis scenario, or at the very least in a desktop walkthrough, then you can’t be confident that everyone knows what to do and how to do it. This step will test everything, including your understanding of who is - and isn’t - required to sign-off statements, right down to who knows how to work the mass messaging application.

4: Our communication is consistent.

It’s no good sending one message to employees: “…we won’t have a fix until tomorrow morning…” and different message to customers: “…we are working as hard as we can and hope to restore services in the next few hours…” 

This lack of consistency will find you out. Your stakeholders will be disappointed because of your overpromise and underdelivery, and there’s a fair chance that the line you have given to your staff will find its way to the media.

Consistency also means not saying you have a ‘minor technical problem’ if you later have to adjust your message to say ‘we are recalling a product because it is dangerous’. Keep it consistent.

5: We can issue a holding statement within 15 minutes of a crisis being called, and a substantive statement within one hour.

This really is the litmus test of steps 1 to 4. If, for example, our website crashes and we are unable to take online orders, how long does it take to communicate the situation to employees and customers? At Crisis Solutions we say that all organisations purporting to be leaders in their field should set themselves an aspiration to communicate effectively within set timeframes. Perhaps 15 minutes for a ‘holding’ statement and one hour for something more substantive. It might not be 15 minutes and one hour for your organisation - you need to set your own aspirations to suit your business and then make sure that you have the processes, skills and tools to hit those aspirations.