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Successfully handling crisis communications

Guest post by: Georgina Dunkley

Article Overview: When it comes to crisis communications, I’ve handled media enquiries covering pretty much everything including faulty car parts, congestion charging and noisy neighbours, so I’ve learnt a trick or two about resolving the situation and keeping the media disruption to a minimum.

Successfully handling crisis communications

When it comes to crisis communications, I've handled media enquiries covering pretty much everything including faulty car parts, congestion charging and noisy neighbours, so I've learnt a trick or two about resolving the situation and keeping the media disruption to a minimum. Below, I have outlined a series of tips to successfully handle crisis communications:

Be prepared - if you know a storm is coming then ensure you have sufficient resource in place to cover it. Find the full details of the crisis and prepare a statement for immediate circulation to the press, when requested.

Get the full story - in a number of circumstances the crisis maybe unexpected and in fact, the media may be the first people to contact you looking for a comment. In this instance, take a full brief on their side of the story. Ask the angle they are going to run, what evidence they have and the timings they are working to e.g. is this for tomorrow's newspaper or tonight's six O'clock news?

Never say ‘no comment' - one of the worst mistakes when dealing with a communications crisis is saying ‘no comment' to the media and having that printed or aired in the news. These two words may seem like a simple solution at the time, but they are in fact a declaration of guilt. Giving a comment allows for your business to put its side of the story forward, while explaining how the issue is being resolved.

Prepare a statement - statements don't need to be long, complicated or go into too much detail. Keep to the facts, be honest and try and put the situation in a fair light. Lead with how the problem is being resolved and an overview of the backstory, to illustrate how this, out-of-the-ordinary situation, arose in the first place.

Nominate one liaison - it is essential that the whole workforce understands that if they are asked for a comment about the particular crisis, that they don't start giving their view. All staff should know who the correct person to speak to is regarding this enquiry and they should refer the comment opportunity on to them.

Mobilise a spokesperson - in some circumstances an ambassador from your company may be asked to give live comment, be it with the broadcast media or with a newspaper reporter. Ensure that the person undertaking the interview has the full facts of the story and has been prepped on the background of the media and reporter. In advance, also ask the media if they can provide sample questions for the interview, so that answers can be created.

Maintain a relationship with the journalist - if you have promised a statement or an interview with a journalist by a certain date or time, then ensure that you get it to them in that time. You will certainly lose brownie points for not supplying the right detail to them for the deadline. If you work within their parameters they are certainly likely to be fairer with you.

Nurture the journalist relationship - most journalists will write a balanced story, provided they have been given sufficient insight into the crisis. In this case, all that you can hope for is a balanced argument which puts forward both sides of the story. Once the story has aired contact the journalist and thank them for the piece. This is a great way to form a relationship with a journalist for when you have some good news to share.

Learn from the mistake - the media doesn't take lightly to businesses who are repeat offenders when it comes to crisis communications, especially if in a statement you have promised this situation will not arise again. Simply learn from the error and put sufficient preventative steps in place.

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Article Tags: crisis communications, media, PR



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