By Heather Ripley
It’s every business owner’s nightmare: You wake up to news that an employee has gone on a crime spree in the branded company van, he’s arrested, and your logo is seen in the background all over social media.
Or your staff accountant gave out his username and password to a phishing email. As a result, the online accounting platform your company uses was hacked, and all your customers’ financial data has been accessed.
It doesn’t matter that neither of these incidents are your fault, your company might still be seen in a bad light.
But if you have a public relations crisis management plan already in place, you know what your next steps are to mitigate the damage a bad event can have on your company’s reputation.
If you don’t have a plan, here are five steps you should take immediately so that you aren’t caught flat-footed when a crisis happens.
1. Don’t assume the crisis will organically go away
There was a time when news didn’t spread as quickly as it does now. Back then, you might have been able to sit tight for a week or two and wait until people grew tired of talking about the bad news. That’s not a luxury in this day and age.
You need to take immediate action and get in front of the crisis. Whether you need to issue an apology or get your side of the issue out, you need to act as soon as possible.
2. Don’t downplay the severity of the situation
Even if no one was physically hurt in the scenarios listed above, that doesn’t mean that individuals weren’t affected. People may have lost a precious family keepsake due to your employee’s actions, or your customers may have had to spend all day changing their banking and credit card information to protect their finances.
Even if you aren’t at fault, you should show empathy for what has happened to them. You need to be authentic in your concern and act quickly to remediate damages.
3. Do communicate immediately with stakeholders
Make sure you hold a company-wide meeting to explain the crisis to your employees, critical managers and any partners you may have. Let them know that you will assemble a team to respond to the accusations and ask them to direct questions to the individual you’ve selected to be the spokesperson.
Your employees should not feel like they have to defend your company or their jobs.
4. Do get with your PR team to ready a statement
It’s never a good idea to hide from the problem. Once you have found out more about the crisis, you should get with your PR team and attorney to pen a statement. This doesn’t have to be shared unless the media reaches out for comment, but it should be vetted and ready to share at a moment’s notice.
You should also have social media statements ready, as well. Social media is used by thousands of people as a news aggregator, so being prepared to put your statement out on your company’s Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn channels is a necessity.
Your statement should let the public and your customers know you have fired the offending employee, for example. Or let them know what steps your financial institution or accounting software company is taking to remediate damages.
Apologize for their troubles and inconvenience, and state what you are doing to fix the problem.
5. Do be sincere with your apology
While it might be tempting to start pointing fingers and burying your apology in a flurry of other online responses or press interviews, don’t do this.
Sure, you can’t help what your employee does on his own time, but it doesn’t do you or the people who have been affected by these actions any good to muddy the waters by discussing issues that aren’t related to the crisis at hand.
According to a recent Price Waterhouse Cooper survey, 69% of business leaders have experienced a corporate crisis. It’s not a matter of if a crisis will happen, it’s more a matter of when.
Ideally, this is why you should already have a crisis communications plan ready to go. A complete plan will help you take control, protect your assets and put you on the path toward regaining customer trust.
A true PR partner will anticipate your needs and have a crisis management plan already in place. This plan generally includes a list of personnel on the crisis management team, the name of the person who will serve as your company’s spokesperson, and the protocols for issuing press releases and social media posts, should they become necessary.
Your PR team will also provide you with ways to determine if your mitigating efforts are having a positive effect and can make adjustments for you if they aren’t working as well as they should.
While you can’t control the world around you, you can certainly control how you respond to it. Putting together a crisis communication plan may seem like a lot of work, but it’s an essential part of doing business.
A crisis may not spell the end of your business, but it can damage your bottom line, harm your employees and affect your future if you don’t take it seriously.
Heather Ripley is founder and CEO of Ripley PR, an elite, global public relations agency specializing in the franchising, skilled trades and B2B tech industries. Ripley PR has been listed by Entrepreneur Magazine as a Top Franchise PR Agency for six consecutive years and was recently named as one of Newsweek’s America’s Best Public Relations Agencies for 2024. Heather Ripley was recently named as a 2024 PRNews Top Women honoree in the business entrepreneur category. She is also the author of “NEXT LEVEL NOW: PR Secrets to Drive Explosive Growth for your Home Service Business,” which is now available on all audiobook platforms. For additional information, visit www.ripleypr.com.
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