The Top 3 Must-do Crisis Management Public Relations Steps
As the nation and world works through the Covid 19 pandemic, it provides a backdrop on how your business can Communicate through effective crisis management public relations with employees, clients, peers and the marketplace if your company is facing its own crisis.
It all begins with an honest assessment of your company’s crisis. Especially when the crisis demands a quick response it’s easy to shove a band-aid message out that solves nothing and creates confusions. It is crucial that you take all of the proper steps to gather, analyze and understand the facts that created the crisis and use these as the core of your messages because once you take a stance, it’s virtually impossible to amend it after the fact without killing your credibility.
The 3 R’s of Crisis Management Public Relations
Remorse
The axiom “ignore it and it will go away” are gone. Companies can no longer bury their heads in the sand and hope their problem goes away. This is why an experienced PR professional, such as the PR professionals at TampaBayWriter.com, is the perfect way to handle the situation.
The PR professional will understand how to get in front of the public perception by first acknowledging that the problem exists and will issue an apology to mitigate any incorrect news that may hit the public. By being proactive and remorseful you won’t be waiting for your crisis to trend on Twitter, etc., and you will be taking the lead in telling your story directly to employees, clients and the public.
- Remedy
A crisis is not the time to be defensive or combative. Although you may indeed be right, coming out with a combative stance will drive the public against you. Therefore, think about what the people want to know and they want to know what you are doing to fix the problem.
You’ve already acknowledged that the crisis exists and you have apologized, now describe the next step – how you are making things rights and how you are making sure it won’t happen again. And it is crucial that your remedy statements serve as a flowing, logical and tone-consistent building block to your initial apology. By being consistent, regardless of the crisis, you always seem to be on the public’s side.
- Renumeration
Now that you have issued an apology – addressed the emotional side of the crisis and how it impacts people and your company, and you’ve offered a viable remedy – addressing the logical side of the crisis by spelling out the steps you are taking to make sure it doesn’t happen again, it’s now time to make things right – renumeration.
If your crisis has left people or business relationships injured, physically or materially, you have to tell them that you’re prepared to make things right. This means spelling out ways that you are immediately undertaking to ease immediate discomfort. This will vary by circumstance but is an absolute necessary step that your crisis PR professionals will broadcast to all parties.
You need to be able to communicate that you will make people whole if you had any part in their discomfort.
The Aftermath
After you have taken the above steps shared your information clearly and consistently be prepared to address the questions that come your way because regardless of what you do there is no way to satisfy absolutely everyone.
And although the criticism toward you and your company may seem overwhelming, there are also those who will embrace your efforts and will provide support. The brand loyalty that you have built up prior to the crisis taking place is a powerful tool to help you weather the storm.