When a crisis strikes a company one of the key elements in resolving the situation is crisis communication, a sub-sect of corporate communications or even, as some would say, PR. When a company becomes larger the probability of a crisis of some kind increases to near 100% certainty. What I mean by this is that every business will eventually face a crisis, the scale of which depends partly on the market the business operates in and partly on the volume of business affected.
The value of a business is partially dependent on its reputation. A business is a sum of its brands and the value of the brands relies on their image. Therefore when a crisis poses a threat to the image the wise choice is to protect it by all means necessary. A well-organized crisis communication strategy can not only to maintain the brand image but also to increase it beyond the situation preceding the crisis.
A good example of crisis communication done properly would be the US Airways flight 1549 that made a crash landing in the Hudson River near New York City in 2007. It is easy to say that this particular crisis turned out to polish the image of the company. In the case the plane in question ran into a flock of Canada geese soon after take-off and the pilot, Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, decided that the best course of action was an emergency landing in the Hudson, no mean task but something that should be at least possible for a veteran pilot with over 30-years of aviation experience.
Almost immediately after the plane went down US Airways issued a press release in which it told what had happened and what was being done, showed concern about the health and safety of the people on board and gave out a toll-free telephone number providing information to the individual who may have had family members on the flight. The initial press release also promised that additional information will be provided by US Airways as it becomes available. The very same day only two hours after the incident the CEO of US Airways, Doug Parker, issued a statement confirming the accident and thanking the people involved in the rescue effort.
A quite recent example of crisis communication done wrong is the PlayStation Network outage over April and May of 2011. The outage stemmed from a series of attacks on the network between 17th and 19th of April. Due to these attacks Sony decided to shut the network down on April 20th. The first communication regarding the outage that affected all the 77 million users of the PlayStation Network was posted by Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Social Media, and said: “We’re aware certain functions of PlayStation Network are down. We will report back here as soon as we can with more information. Thank you for your patience.”
It was not until two days later on 22nd of April that Sony admitted on its blog that it had in fact turned off the network because of “an external intrusion” and it took six days from Sony to inform the users of PlayStation Network via mass e-mail and blog entry on 26th that their personal data, including credit card information, may have been compromised due to this intrusion. But even though Sony admitted that users’ personal data may have been stolen they did not apologize for the event, only regretted the inconvenience it might cause. The users had to wait until the 1st of May for an apology.
I know it might be unfair to compare these two events to each other since they are very different in nature. However I believe that serve as an example for the four things I personally consider the corner stones of crisis communication:
1. Planning: Every company should be aware of the risks that are foreseeable in their line of business and make preparations accordingly. On such preparation is a crisis communication plan. This plan does not have to be anything too complex, but it should clearly state who the company representative is and what channels of communication are used.
2. Speed: Crisis communication should be as fast as possible. Preferably the first communiqué should be issued within minutes after the crisis has occurred and should be followed up as soon as there is more information available.
3. Honesty: Information should not be withheld for any other purposes than preventing further harm to be done. There will be a full disclosure coming anyway so it is best to be forthcoming with all known facts. Leaving out or even hiding information will only come back later and bite you in the rear.
4. Thanking and Apologizing: Never try to shift the blame or take the credit. Remember to recognize and thank the people who helped to resolve the crisis and apologize to the people affected. You should always apologize even if the situation is not directly your fault.
When these four points are kept in mind crisis communication should not be a challenge for anyone who is otherwise well versed. Always remember that even though crises are better to be avoided, sometimes when one occurs it should be viewed also as an opportunity.
