Any business will face some kind of public relations crisis at one point or another. And the way you address the issue can either give your enterprise an instant uplift or significantly destroy your business. Particularly, in this day and age, where news goes viral instantly because of advanced technologies, organizations ought to understand how to respond to any PR crisis. This should be done quickly and efficiently though.
If you don’t want to risk losing your business over such a crisis, consider sticking to the following golden rules of public relations crisis management.
Don’t try covering up the PR crisis as this will only worsen the situation. Rather, consider managing the situation by acting immediately and instantly responding to feedback. Avoid arguing publicly, acknowledge other people’s concerns as well as questions. Respond only to the right conversations. Act swiftly and write a press release then post it on social media to effectively control the situation and make the message visible.
In today’s competitive world of social media, reputation management matters a lot. The tenets of any communication crisis should be proactive, transparent, as well as accountable. Start by acknowledging the incident, accepting responsibility, and then apologizing to your audience. For more information on how to conduct yourself, contact pr firm nyc.
The worst thing a company can do is to ignore the possibility that a blaze could actually ignite on social media. Small enterprises can feel guiltier of this and particularly those that aren’t active on social media. Simply because a company isn’t marketing on social media doesn’t necessarily mean that their clients won’t put them in check across those platforms whenever something goes wrong.
Don’t postpone anything. Just be human and provide an instant solution. Don’t keep saying that you’ll look into the crisis. Do something now and make your customers feel proud. Saying that you’re deeply disappointed with what transpired and will try fixing the problem is very important.
Share information regarding how policies will be put in place so as to prevent the crisis from happening again. Act swiftly before customers lose faith in your brand.
Extending your heartfelt apology is truly important. It’s key to moving forward. Ignoring this step only adds fuel to the fire and delays fixing your company’s reputation. Once you’ve made a public apology, you’ll need to provide a comprehensive call to action. You should really do something substantial to demonstrate your efforts towards changing the way your business is moving forward.
Alert your social media team about what’s happening and ask them to monitor everything more carefully. If they begin noticing spikes of negativity or enhanced activity, use an already well-versed crisis management strategy to proactively respond on social media platforms with prepared materials.
Don’t allow executives to go rogue and fuel the flames. But convince them to apologize immediately with approved key messages.
Communicate all relevant information to key stakeholders. And when prompted to reply, don’t reply with ‘no comment’. Of course, you may still be trying to assess a situation, simply avoid saying that. By being silent or giving a fake response will make people assume that you’re guilty or are making your own suppositions.
Besides, you should know when operational improvements are required and try as much as you can be transparent about how you’re going to solve the situation.
It’s extremely easy to become reactive, especially when your brand and company reputation are at stake. Restrain from making comments, posts, or tweets before you have discussed with your public relations team about the most reasonable approach to follow. If you have got a competent team, which you should have, they’ll come up with the best solution to this and craft the perfect language for you to use.
Try everything you can to prevent the crisis. It’s very easy to blame frontline workers for recurring viral nightmares, but remember that they aren’t responsible for the poisonous brand culture that breeds them. A company brand culture that treats clients badly is more likely to treat its workforce poorly too. Dig deeper into your organizational culture as well as service delivery and you’ll realize that new troughs in brand experience often start at the top.
The first rule of PR crisis management is to switch off the fan. Don’t add insult to the injury. Step back, and try putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask yourself how you’d feel if it happened to you. Being understanding and compassionate is the best thing to do when dealing with PR crisis situations. It makes sure that you do the right thing and deliver the best results to your clients.
Companies, influencers, as well as brand representatives usually provide emotional, frantic responses. When monitoring a case, going silent on social media isn’t a bad thing. Block all external communication until you’ve evaluated what’s going on. Bear in mind that the first external communication you make following the crisis should be a well-thought-out response which resonates well with your customers.
No one really wants to be involved in any serious scandal, but scrambling around because you aren’t prepared to handle it makes things even worse. Always anticipate potential crisis scenarios and formulate internal protocols for curbing them. Before such a crisis hits, plan who needs to be informed, outline a clear internal review process and determine the individuals who’re authorized to address the public on your behalf. This will ensure that you only remain focused on the main issue of concern.
With the above crisis management strategies, you’ll find it easier to calming down your customers and making them understand exactly what happened. And this will eventually help you restore your brand’s reputation and help your business to continue thriving on today’s highly competitive market.
