Powerful Actions during Crisis Period

In running the business, there will be some situations that lead the company or brand into crisis situations that cannot be avoided but need to find the solution for future business. How does the company take the right steps to face the crisis?

Every business has a close connection with the public, which consists of their target audiences and the general audience. It means that every brand has a special connection with their customers, which leads to long term engagement as well as periodical alliances. However, the connection with the public open the opportunity for the company to face the public relations crisis, which can affect the reputation of the company or the brand. This crisis might vary from a series of negative incidents, scandals, product or service failures, regulatory errors, and other negative situations that can impact the company and brand’s image within the market. To prevent the crisis, the brand owner should understand the public relations steps that should be taken to minimize the impact of the crisis on the companies’ reputations.

Public Relations Steps During Crisis

In preparing the business strategy to face different types of crisis, the company or the brand owner should set some right steps to recover the business flow after experimenting a crisis. The steps should relate to the type of crisis, the business and brand’s culture, and the impact on society. As part of the Integrated Strategic Communications, there are some critical steps that should be prepared for crisis prevention.

1. Build the Response Team

The Response Team is a group of people who are responsible to speak to the public on behalf of the company and it should be appointed before the crisis happens. This team will explain the situation and make clarification on the issue that has happened based on the internal discussion with the management team. During a crisis, the Response Team should react immediately and speak to the public with one voice for public’s clarity.

2. Strategies Development and Give Detail Information to the Team

In the beginning, the company’s management should develop a strategy if they experience a crisis situation. The company will follow this planned strategy as guidance during the incident, whereas this strategy will be used as a protocol for the Response Team while speaking out to the public describing the situation. Therefore, they should have an in-depth understanding of their responsibilities and actions within the media coverage.

3. Set the Right Response

At first, the company and the Response Team should have detailed information about the incident that happen to be a crisis for the organization. This information consists of the facts of the incident and the current situation in the market as well as in the company. All of that information can be used as an important source for developing the message as a response to an incident for the public. The response itself should be delivered fast to the audience with open and honest. By implementing those actions, the public will see the responsibility of the company in handling crisis. However, the way of giving response to the crisis situation will depend on the type of incident itself. In some situations, giving response in a silence will be the best way to handle a crisis.

4. List Down the People who Need to Know About the Incident

The company should make the identification of the parties who need to be updated on the situation, such as employees, clients, partners, customers, media, and other related parties to the organization. The selection parties will depend on the situation and the time.

5. Always Monitor the Situation

During the crisis, the company or the Response Team should monitor the situation, which includes the inbound and outbound communications, to maintain the brand’s image within the market. By implementing this activity, the company will keep updated on what the audience and media have said about your company or brand. The best way of doing the monitoring is by using the keyword of the brand and crisis situation, updating the information about influencers, customers, and competitors.

6. End the Action by Doing a Review and Pick Up Learning Points from the Situation

After finishing the crisis handling, the company should do a post-action review. It contains the performance of the company and the Response Team handling the crisis situation, the actions that can be improved or changed as a prevention for a similar situation in the future, the way to give the response to the public, and other actions that are being implemented while facing a crisis.

By considering the above points, the company should prepare this before the crisis happens to avoid the misunderstanding that might be happened in an uncertain situation. The points can be customized according to the type of crisis situation, the parties that have involved, the market condition, and other related items. Preventing is better to be prepared for the worst scenarios to save the brand.