Any company, big or small, can experience a crisis. There’s no getting around it! According to research, about 75 percent of companies will experience a crisis at some point due to the increasing complexity of modern business and the growth of social media in our fast-paced world.

The days when we could sit back, relax and hope for the best are long gone. In today’s 24-hour news culture, every embarrassing incident is reported in all its lurid detail, whether it’s true or not. This is where crisis management comes in.

Crisis management is the reaction to an unexpected event that could have long lasting consequences on the organisation’s finances or reputation. It deals with the situation that arises when something bad happens and your organisation is directly involved in it or implicated in some way. Crisis management is not preventing a crisis, but rather managing an existing crisis.

What is Crisis Management?

Crisis management is an organisation’s response to unexpected events that threaten to do serious harm to the reputation or finances of that organisation. Crises can be strategic (a purposeful attempt to gain media attention in order to sell a product or service) or accidental.

Download Crisis White Paper

Crises do not only occur as a result of large-scale incidents — smaller problems can sometimes have long-lasting consequences. This is why you should know how to deal with them in advance. That way you can manage risks and prevent possible losses.

A crisis is distinguished from routine disruptions by its potential for threat and harm to the reputation or physical assets of an individual, organisation or community. Crises often require immediate action but there are many things organisations can do before an event occurs to prevent crises from happening.

Crisis management requires a company to take steps to avoid disaster, manage the crisis and recover from it as quickly as possible. Crisis management can be divided into three main steps.

The first step is to understand the crisis. The crisis manager must determine what is happening and why. Once this is understood, a crisis plan can be developed to deal with the crisis. This crisis plan should be based on a comprehensive business risk assessment and should be aligned with the business strategy and other company policies. A crisis plan should be developed and implemented immediately.

The second step is to manage the crisis. This involves taking action to stop the crisis, minimise its impact and recover as quickly as possible. This may include working with the authorities to obtain financial support, as well as taking steps to preserve the company’s reputation and business relationships.

The third step is to recover from the crisis. This may include making changes to the company’s business or its business operations. It may also involve building a strategy to strengthen the company’s ability to manage crises in the future.

What is the goal of crisis management?

A crisis is a disaster, an emergency situation that can be negative for the reputation and even survival of any business. The goal of crisis management is to minimise the possible short-term and long-term damage from the widespread knowledge of that crisis to the reputation of your brand.

This entails limiting the damage or mitigating the adverse effects of a bad PR incident, natural disasters, industrial accidents, product failures, computer system failures, management misconduct, or even acts of terrorism. It’s widely accepted that a proactive approach to reducing harm is more effective than a reactionary approach when dealing with a crisis. The goal is to resolve the crisis and get back to normal.

Most individuals can recall at least one crisis they have been through in their present position. Ensuring that your business is ready to handle any crisis is essential not only to the success of your organisation but also important to maintaining its reputation.

What is a crisis?

A crisis is an event, which is likely to have a significant and detrimental impact on the business operations of your organisation.

A crisis is also any unplanned event that involves a problem, harmful effect or threat to people (or property or related companies) and/or the public interest. Crises can be caused by acts of nature; accidents involving trains, cars, planes or ships; industrial disasters; a terrorist attack and deliberate contamination of food or water supply. The world watched in shock as in 2010, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull eruption disrupted millions of travellers around the globe.

Every one of us who has run a crisis management programme will agree that it is an emotionally charged and demanding experience. A crisis can emerge out of unexpected circumstances. It can even happen due to a violation of law, going against the accountability act or failure to meet expected standards.

If your company is going through the stages of a crisis, it’s important to manage all stakeholders’ expectations. You can do this by publishing a newsletter, which will inform employees and everyone else about what’s going on.

In business, managing crises is an integral part of marketing – especially if you’re a brand new company.

If people have a negative experience with your products or services, it’s important to know how to handle all customer complaints and requests – which, at the very least, will stop people from running off to your competitors.

But handling negative publicity shouldn’t be limited to just customer complaints; sometimes it’s essential for responding to the actions of your competitors, who could potentially damage your reputation in the marketplace.

How to know there is a crisis?

The first item of business in crisis management is figuring out that there is a problem. When crisis strikes, professionals can coordinate a cohesive crisis response, mitigate its effects, and even execute an early turnaround to create long-lasting change.

Unfortunately, detecting a crisis early is considerably easier said than done. Most crises go unrecognised even as early warning signals appear, submerged in the flood of the everyday operation of an agency or obscured by prejudices, preconceptions, and blind optimism.

To be effective, business leaders and managers should embrace a proactive strategy to recognise crises early. Three ways to detect crisis early are:

  • recognising warning indicators,
  • gathering data and analysing the situation,
  • and establishing the proper environment where the problem can be resolved.

Whether it is a natural disaster, an error by your business, fatality caused by workplace violence, or some kind of misjudgement on your part, managing a crisis is critical to the long-term stability of any company.

The wrong approach could lead to a loss of trust with your staff and clients, not to mention higher insurance rates as well as larger legal fees. A successful step-by-step approach will help you prepare for all kinds of crises, and help you recover from one in more manageable ways than if you had simply done nothing at all.

What are the types of crisis?

A crisis can be anything that disrupts the normal flow of your business. It could be an external event such as a natural disaster, industrial accident or human error. Or it could be a production, financial or management failure that causes a corporate crisis for your business.

Whatever the cause of the crisis, it will likely trigger an emergency response which brings into play crisis management plans and procedures designed to deal with the situation. A crisis needs to be dealt with quickly, but in a manner that minimises the damage caused to a company’s reputation and assets.

The first step in dealing with one is to determine what sort of crisis you’re facing.

Natural crisis

A natural crisis is any type of disaster that may be caused due to natural situations. It includes diseases, weather, earthquakes and fires. Any situation that a human being cannot control and may cause great loss can be called a natural crisis.

Financial crisis

A financial crisis is an unexpected event initiated by financial markets. It may be caused by a huge shortage of money due to widespread loss of jobs, a decline in tax revenues and a change in the business system. The crisis may be accompanied by high volumes on the trading of assets. Crises cause a major disruption in the economic functioning of a country or in the financial markets of the world.

Technological crisis

A technological crisis is a massive problem within a business that is created by technology. This could be anything from an operating system breakdown to website downtime. Understanding what situations can lead to this kind of crisis can be very useful, especially if you are an entrepreneur or a leader in a company.

Organisational crisis

Organisational crises are circumstances that jeopardize the competitiveness and survival of a company. They are caused by a combination of factors. A crisis in an organisation can jeopardise a major product line or business unit, negatively impact the financial performance of the firm, and negatively impact the health and well-being of consumers, workers, neighbouring communities, or the environment. It may also have a negative impact on the public’s faith in an organisation, as well as its reputation, image and shareholder value.

Personnel crisis

A personnel crisis is a blanket term used to describe any event that can create a stressful or unpleasant work environment for employees. There can be many different causes of this type of crisis, including inter-office politics, discrimination, sexual harassment, and gender/racial bias.

Download Crisis White Paper

When an employee’s behaviour causes an organisational crisis, it’s critical to propose a balanced strategy that tackles the issue. Determine the proper disciplinary steps to take against the employee, both to safeguard their legal rights and your company’s reputation.

Man-made disasters

Man-made crisis events are disasters that are directly caused by people. These events can be criminal such as terrorism or accidents such as train collisions, plane crashes, oil spills or explosions.

For example, a cyberattack might halt corporate activities and make them impossible to resume. Financial crises caused by high-level market manipulation and logistic mishaps may also cause a major corporate crisis.

If your company is susceptible to man-made crises, you must have a strategy to protect your people and your company.

What are the stages of crisis management?

Crisis management is a process, not an event. It’s the result of preparation and planning before any crisis takes place. And by recognizing the stages of a crisis, you can make it go more smoothly.

There are six stages of a crisis management strategy. The first step is the prevention stage. It is more difficult to predict and prevent a potential crisis, but you can avoid some potential problems by being prepared.

The second step is assessment. This is the initial examination of a crisis, which usually has to be done immediately because time is of the essence. The third step is evaluation, which determines the severity of the crisis. After evaluating the situation, a decision must be made whether to engage in the next steps of crisis management: containment, control, and communication.

For some crisis management experts or organisations, crisis management can be divided into three (3) stages.

Pre-crisis: This involves planning the crisis management methods in order to avert future events.

Crisis: This is the actual response to the problems the crisis caused and the resulting strategic challenges.

Post-crisis: This happens following the resolution of the crisis; the crisis management team’s attempts to understand why the crisis happened and to learn from the negative event.

If your company decides to initiate these steps, then you will have to come up with a plan, assign responsibility, and choose a spokesperson. This should have been decided upon earlier when building a crisis response plan.

For some organisations, the 5 Ps of crisis management is a better option for crisis management.

The 5 P’s of crisis management

Crisis management is extremely complex, and there is no set way of handling a crisis.

Using the National Crisis Management 5 P’s of crisis management Framework provides a comprehensive understanding of crises.

Understanding these 5 P’s of crisis management will ensure you are able to make fast and effective decisions if your company is hit by a disaster.

Predict

This is an effort to minimise the level of uncertainty in the near future. This key component is carried out through the use of Situation Awareness (SA) processes at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. Prediction involves the following elements: up-to-date inputs-threats, intelligence about potential threats, knowledge of potential targets, and knowledge of vulnerabilities.

Prevent

This is an intentional activity with the goal of preventing future damage by addressing the underlying causes. This is accomplished by the implementation of a long-term plan as well as immediate operational processes.

Awareness and attentiveness to signals and appearances of suspicious-looking persons should be encouraged in order to reduce the impact of man-made incidents. Operational security, personnel security, physical security, and other forms of precaution are all examples of prevention.

Prepare

This is a fundamental part of a successful response, this component includes six important tasks, which are as follows: planning and organising; crisis training; equipping; exercising; reviewing and improving.

Perform

This is the implementation of contingency plans even after putting proactive measures in place. Once a crisis arises, the focus shifts away from developing or improving capabilities and toward deploying resources to save lives, help safeguard and the environment, and maintain the social, economic, and structure of the organisation. The performance is divided into three sub-stages: the initial action, the primary action, and the post action.

Post-Action and Assessment

This is a phase that occurs once the crisis has been resolved and the situation is judged to be under control. This is the period in which the organisation is resuming its normal operations. Post-action activities look for ways to analyse and enhance the effectiveness of preventive, preparation, and actual execution, among other things.

Types of crisis management strategies

There are various types of crisis management strategies. Some businesses recognise the importance of a crisis plan and have created such procedures, while others are more focused on keeping everything on track day-to-day. If a crisis occurs the lack of a Crisis Management Plan could cause even bigger problems.

Planning during an emergency is not a good idea. It is necessary to help develop lines of communication in order to make sure that every employee knows his / her role in the event of an emergency.

Proactive crisis management

This occurs when a company anticipates the occurrence of a certain sort of crisis and takes proactive steps to prepare for it. As part of your crisis management strategy, you must prepare for a possible crisis in order to either prevent or lessen its consequences on your operations.

The crisis management process includes identifying risks, keeping tabs on them, and implementing crisis management plans to mitigate their influence on your organisation.

For example, if a natural crisis situation were to occur, a business located in a flood-prone area might make certain that the office space is designed to withstand floods and hurricanes. Also, you might set aside an emergency budget or have multiple production facilities in case the one in your firm unexpectedly ceases operating.

Responsive crisis management

This is an approach to dealing with crises in order to keep their impact on your company’s operations to a minimum. When a company has a previously established reaction to a certain sort of worst case scenario that can be used at any moment, they are said to be prepared to respond.

Examples of such processes include a company’s precise actions in place for dealing with an organisational or financial crisis in a timely way. These plans may also include specifics on how they intend to notify staff about the issue and interact with other key stakeholders.

Recovery crisis management

There are times when an organisation has to deal with a crisis that comes out of nowhere. As a case study, consider a technology breakdown. In the event that a company’s software unexpectedly collapses, it has a direct impact on both employees and consumers.

In the aftermath of an unexpected event, recovery crisis management helps an organisation get back on its feet.

As you begin to identify all of the crises to which your company is vulnerable, you may decide that it is time for business continuity planning. As you proceed through the remainder of the processes in your crisis management plan, this will assist you in identifying all of the potential features of these crises on a very comprehensive level.

The 11 Steps For Crisis Management

A crisis can happen any time: from a natural disaster to a company scandal. A crisis can quickly turn into a PR nightmare if not handled correctly, which is why it’s important to have all the right tools in place before it happens. This will minimise the damage done to your company and your brand. Here are some tips on how to manage and respond promptly to a crisis.

1. Create a crisis plan and test it

Planning for a crisis is crucial to protecting your business and brand. A crisis plan is the first step in helping to mitigate the damage of a crisis. And while it’s better to plan when everything is calm, you need to make sure that it works when you have to use it.

Here are some simple steps to creating a crisis plan

Assess your risks and vulnerabilities

The first stage is to conduct a risk assessment, which highlights common pitfalls and crises that can affect your company’s operations and/or business processes. Prepare a list of all relevant risks and vulnerabilities that might have an impact on the organisation in collaboration with members of your leadership team, your crisis management team, and other important stakeholders.

Determine the business impact.

A business impact analysis (BIA) evaluates the possible impact of a business crisis by identifying and quantifying the risks.

Conducting a BIA might disclose a number of outcomes, including the following:

  • Customer discontent or attrition.
  • A tarnished public image.
  • Lost sales or reduced income
  • Increased expenses
  • Fines

A threat assessment is a critical step in ensuring that your business considers all potential threats from all angles.

Make a list of potential contingencies.

Now that you’ve identified the risks that might have an impact on your organisation and the ways in which they could do so, you can start defining the activities that will enable your organisation to respond successfully to each threat.

Consider the measures that would be necessary to remedy the problem, the resources that would be required, and the ways in which employees may assist.

Build the plan.

Once you have identified a contingency plan for each threat, you should collaborate with key stakeholders to flesh out the details of the plans. Key personnel, such as department heads, may assist in providing insight into existing resources as well as any snags in the road. You may also require feedback from third parties, such as vendors and partners that have a close working relationship with your company.

Review the plan on a regular basis.

As soon as your crisis response strategy is prepared, authorised, and put through its paces, be sure you revisit it on a regular basis. Making certain that the strategy is kept updated is critical. This is especially true as workers join or leave the organisation, new technologies are adopted, and other changes take place. It is beneficial to evaluate and test the plan at least once a year to ensure that the information is up to date.

Download Crisis White Paper

2. Setup a crisis communication team

Now that you have a plan in place (see part 1), it is important to determine how you are going to utilise your crisis management team. The next step is to set up a crisis communication team. Your crisis communication team should be made up of people from all areas of your organisation, including those from the corporate relations department, legal department, human resources department and any others involved in crisis management on a day-to-day basis.

The better prepared and practised this team is, the faster your organisation can work through a crisis.

3. Ensure all the people who need to know your plans are trained

The key to crisis management is being mentally prepared to evaluate and control the damage, minimise the risks and reputation of your company, and protect the customers. To do this effectively, it is important that all members of your company understand how the crisis plan works and how they will respond depending on the type of crisis.

Also, all other employees, even if they are not directly involved in effectively addressing a crisis scenario, should be aware of the steps they are required to take in the event of its occurrence.

For example, everyone at your organisation should be trained on how to respond to natural disasters, such as where to cover, so that they know what to do in the event of an emergency. You don’t want one of your employees to get injured in a crisis because of a lack of training and preparation.

4. Do a threat assessment

When a crisis hits (e.g. a data breach or cyber attack) there are various actions that must be taken to mitigate the risks. Doing a threat assessment involves analyzing existing threats, determining the likelihood of threats occurring and ranking the possible severity of these threats. This helps you to determine what resources you will need in order to react quickly.

A threat assessment involves:

  • Identifying and analysing crisis trends in your industry in order to identify possible areas of danger
  • Examining similar businesses and the ways in which they have dealt with crises;
  • Collecting data from within your organisation from a diverse range of stakeholders such as senior management, operations management, board members, and line employees.
  • Identifying the “red flags” that indicate a high likelihood of a crisis occurring; and
  • Evaluating the possible economic loss that each of the highlighted risks might result in.

5. Decide if the threat is worth responding to

When managing a crisis or emergency, there is no time for hesitation. Your decision-making process will be fast and furious to maintain control. The threat response phase involves asking yourself if the threat is worth responding to.

The answer is based on the following considerations:

  • (A) is this a recent event or was this an ongoing problem,
  • (B) is it possible to mitigate/stop/fix the issue(s),
  • (C) do you have a plan,
  • (D) do all parties involved know their roles and responsibilities,
  • (E) are resources available?

If the threat does not have a damaging effect, it is best to remain silent for financial and reputation considerations. On the other hand, if the damage is high, then it becomes worthwhile to respond by following a reasonable and realistic approach. On top of this, you must work to make it very clear that you are going above and beyond what you need to do in order to make things right.

6. Communicate with stakeholders

The speed the news spreads nowadays is lightning fast, reason enough for an effective crisis communication plan. This means that is important to communicate with stakeholders as soon as possible, once you have decided that the crisis is worth responding to.

As a business owner or spokesperson, you should keep your ear to the ground and be alert for any bad news about your company. If a crisis arises, it is vital to act quickly and not delay in publishing a statement or answering enquiries.

You should have a designated spokesperson who can send out timely press releases. Take immediate action, express regret and apology, and assess the crisis situation with professional expertise.

Communication and transparency are the cornerstones of any crisis communication plan. By getting the right information and messages to the right people you will be able to better respond to your stakeholders.

7. Understand Any Legal Issues

Crisis management is an important part of public relations. If you have dealt with a crisis at your company, it’s time to learn the legal consequences.

It is important that you find out the legal consequences of what is happening. Understanding different laws and regulations that apply to your industry and understanding how potential crises may affect those regulations will help you minimise damage and ensure compliance.

8. Resolve ASAP

A disaster may cause a lot of trouble for your company, but do not worry. You can always take action to resolve the crisis.

A well-handled crisis could help your company gain from a bad situation. It’s very important that you resolve the crisis as soon as possible.

Whether it’s a mistake you’ve made or a crisis that has landed on your doorstep, you need to stop whatever it is that’s causing the problem and fix it — or at least start working towards fixing it.

The time taken to resolve the issue will have an impact on how satisfied customers and stakeholders are with your future plans. Therefore, it’s important to respond thoughtfully and speedily. This reduces any damage that may have been done to relationships and reputations.

9. Analyse your results

After your crisis, you’ve been given a chance to assess the crisis situation. Now it’s time to take a good look at the result of your crisis management plan to see if it is good enough for the next crisis.

Did your crisis response system work for all the scenarios you prepared for or didn’t it? Just like any other business plan, a crisis management plan needs constant improvement. If there are elements that haven’t worked or could be improved, they should be further studied and analysed to decide how to proceed with them.

This may sound off, but there is no better way of seeing if your crisis management plan works than by experiencing a crisis first-hand.

10. Establish preventive measures

A step to crisis management is establishing preventive measures for next time. However, a lot of businesses neglect this step, and it can cost them dearly. You’ll have to learn from your mistakes, of course, but at the same time, you should be sure to do it in such a way that it doesn’t happen again.

Smart businesses invest resources in prevention to avert a crisis, as well as implement effective crisis management techniques – in the event of an emergency response.

11. Invest in PR

When something bad happens to a company, many are tempted to “sweep it under the rug” and pretend nothing ever happened. While this might seem like the best solution at the time, addressing a crisis can help build your business. It’s important to come up with an emergency communication plan in case something goes wrong. In some cases, this may mean investing in public relations.

Investing in good PR is one of the best ways to stem the tide of public scrutiny. Not just in the narrow sense of a press release or two but also in the time and resources necessary to demonstrate that your company cares about consumers, considers employees as partners, cares about ethical behaviour, will do whatever it takes to rectify mistakes, and otherwise contributes positively to society in ways that are not directly related to your main business – if only because they make your company a more pleasant place to work.

Professional public relations agencies are a form of insurance for firms that can prove to be invaluable in times of crisis (unless you are lucky enough to run into none). Corporate communications departments should establish a relationship with a PR firm early on, conducting an up-front evaluation for crisis communications.

Why should organisations create crisis management plans?

When you experience a crisis, you want to respond as quickly and effectively as possible. If you have not created a crisis management plan, you are not able to do this.

A crisis can come from a number of different sources, and they can have very different effects. For example, a business could be affected by a natural disaster, a crime, fire or any number of other things. The same goes for a crisis that is entirely your own fault. A business that has not prepared for a crisis will inevitably be affected more by it.

A crisis management plan is a document you create and keep for future use in case you experience a crisis. It is a way of thinking about the crisis you are going through and how you are going to respond to it.

Your crisis management plan should be tailored to your unique crisis situation and you will need to work out what you want to achieve from it.

You need to make a crisis management plan because:

You need to set out what you are going to do to deal with the crisis in the future. You need to be able to access it quickly if the crisis occurs again.

You need to be able to understand how you have dealt with the crisis in the past and how you are going to deal with it again.

A crisis management plan can help you to:

  • understand the crisis you are experiencing
  • take action to deal with the crisis
  • minimise the impact of the crisis on your business
  • understand the consequences of your actions
  • find out if others are experiencing the same crisis

Remember, a crisis management plan is not a replacement for the advice you have received from a professional advisor. It is a way of organising the information you have received so that you can take action.

How to create a crisis management plan

The first thing that you have to do is to make sure that you have all of the relevant information.

You need to know what the crisis is. You need to know how it’s going to start. You need to know how it’s going to affect you. You need to know how it’s going to affect the people around you. You need to know what resources are available to you.

The following are the ten most important components of a successful crisis management plan. These include a risk assessment, an activation protocol, a command structure, a command centre plan, response implementation plan, appropriate communication programmes, resources, training, and a review of the crisis management process and procedures.

Crisis management teams are to a large extent responsible for the development of the crisis management strategy. All team members are encouraged to contribute, and the team engages with other stakeholders, such as the operations staff and senior management, as needed. The plan outlines important functions in the crisis response process, as well as the duties of each member.

When a crisis happens, a good crisis management plan has a number of factors that help crisis management teams to fulfil their roles as efficiently as possible.

Include team roles and duties, the chain of command, the specifics of the operations centre, the structure of the command system, as well as communication, preventive, and recovery efforts in your plan. You should also provide procedures that are particular to specific scenarios that are commonly encountered.

Your crisis management plan must be both adaptable and practical because these crisis situations are unpredictable and they seldom occur in the manner that you have planned.

Also, while it is possible to have a crisis management plan for every kind of risk that can affect your business, you should focus on the most common ones.

The most common types of risks include:

  • Legal problems
  • External and internal threats
  • Financial risks
  • Political risks
  • Risks related to your business model

The main purpose of a crisis management plan is to keep you safe in the event of a crisis.

In order to ensure that your plan can adapt to changing conditions and that you can actually execute it under time constraints, you should test it out first.

Who should be part of your crisis management team?

Effective crisis management starts with having a team in place to help you manage the crisis.

This is a very important step to take, as a crisis is a very stressful time in a company’s life cycle. Not only does it put a strain on the existing team, but it will also likely create a lot of questions and concerns for the employees in the company.

This crisis management team should consist of:

  • The CEO or CFO of the company
  • The HR manager of the company
  • A PR personnel or someone from the press department
  • The board of directors or a person with specialised knowledge in the area of crisis management
  • People who are all highly qualified and are able to handle the crisis in the best way.

These individuals should all have a strong understanding of the company, its history and its future plans.

Once you have a team in place, you can start to manage the crisis.

The crisis management team should meet at least once a week to discuss what is going on with the company. They will then assess the situation and develop a plan to help the company get back on its feet.

Have you defined your crisis management process?

Have you defined your crisis management process? If not, then you’re not prepared to meet public relations challenges quickly. Meaning of course, that you could be taken off-guard by problems and crises. This can hamper what you’re capable of achieving as an organisation and destroy your brand. To prepare yourself, it’s important to define how you will handle the challenges ahead of time.

Remember though that your crisis response needs to be resilient, which means that it should be able to last for quite some time as well as be flexible enough to adjust to new scenarios. These 2 things are vital when trying to handle a crisis because even the best-defined approach will not work out in all situations.

Defining your crisis management process will ensure you are fully prepared to manage any crisis that may occur.

Should you hire a professional to handle a crisis?

A crisis can cause a lot of problems for your business and you may feel the need to hire an expert to help solve them. So should you hire a professional to handle a crisis?

The best approach is to find a pro who can deal with the crisis before it even happens, someone who has handled crises before, maybe even multiple times.

You need independent advice from crisis experts such as PR consultants, lawyers and management consultants who will work with you to answer these crisis response questions: what is legal, ethical and best practice for dealing with the crisis; how likely is your organisation to get media attention; how should you handle media relations following an unplanned event which could lead to litigation; will this impact your future operations?

Public relations firms are taught to respond effectively, quickly and proactively in order to minimise the impact of public relations problems.

Whether the PR team is equipped with their own set of skills to handle crisis situations, or if they’re relying on outside consultants such as crisis management firms, one thing is certain: A professional lends an air of credibility and can help save your brand’s image.

Final thoughts

Crisis management is an ever-evolving science. This is because we, as humans, are never going to stop having issues and problems.

Many organisations will deal with a crisis at some point. A crisis can be anything from a project management mistake to an actual threat to your business or brand. Most important during a crisis is transparency and honesty.

Your organisation should make an effort to surround itself with good PR representatives who understand the value of good communication and how it affects your business. Even if the outcome of a crisis isn’t positive, as long as you’ve communicated well, then that’s something positive to be gained from the crisis situation.

To build or maintain a positive image, it’s essential that you know what you’re doing when it comes to crisis management. Building a crisis response plan that improves communication with customers and solves the core issues can reduce the impact of potential crises.

No matter what industry you are in, effectively handling a crisis-or potential crisis-is the foundation of every successful PR strategy.

The best way to manage a crisis and minimise damage is to recognise how one could arise, how it will be handled, and how the damage might be reduced.

Download Crisis White Paper

Our crisis management expertise can help you resolve crises, limit the impact of escalating crises, and protect your organisation’s reputation.

Request more information here.

Social Media Training