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Who
Stepped In It
Crisis Management: Are You Prepared?
By Mark McDonald
If you're in business for the long haul, chances are at some point you'll face a public relations crisis. Whether it's a plant explosion, illegal or unethical actions of an employee, or unsubstantiated attacks by a disgruntled former employee, eventually the reputation of your business will be at risk.
When that public relations crisis arrives, how you communicate to the public in coordination with your crisis management firm will determine whether your business survives and quickly recovers, or slowly dies while you watch competitors pick up your customers. Reputation management becomes key.
Historically, public relations consultants have been called after a crisis strikes and asked to “spin” the story to fix the problem. This approach seldom works. Preparing for crisis communication should be part of every business strategic communication plan and should be practiced long before a crisis hits.
The makers of Zicam recently found themselves in the news, in a negative way, and they demonstrated exactly how NOT to perform crisis management. They also showed that they either had poor public relations counsel or none at all.
When Zicam users were proven to have permanently lost their sense of smell and taste because of Zicam, the company's leadership focused discussions with the media on their concerns about the impact that losing this product line would have on revenues and whether other product lines would have to be discontinued because of this health risk to their customers in Lincoln, Omaha, Fremont, Hastings, York, Eastern Nebraska, Nebraska, and nationwide.
Wow, could they be any less compassionate about the health of their customers? I think not. Zicam leaders showed little concern for their customers and instead fixated on the company’s bottom line.
This company could have done better in regards to reputation management. Here are some crisis management tactics they could have used to better survive this communications crisis and earn the respect of their customers in Nebraska, Lincoln, Omaha, Fremont, Hastings, York, Eastern Nebraska:
• Prepare to address the media and company critics through a crisis management plan developed before a crisis hits. This plan should pre-arm company leaders and spokespersons with core messages representing the company's values.
• Conduct annual media training with key members of the company so they're prepared when things go south and they must come face-to-face with reporters who smell blood (perhaps literally).
• Conduct practice scenarios testing their crisis management skills and exercising the media training key people have received. Determine in these scenarios if current business practices are aligned with the core messages used in the training scenarios.
• Consider hiring a crisis management firm in their region that is skilled in reputation management. Adding them to your team can help your company public relations professionals see the end-game a bit clearer, i.e., they do not wear company-colored eye glasses and will provide unvarnished -- sometimes crisis-averting -- points of view.
Another public relations benefit of preparing and exercising the crisis management plan is that it helps a company evaluate what its values are in the larger scheme of things. Many times, they identify issues within the crisis communication training that go counter to the company's core values, and this offers a chance for course correction before a crisis strikes.
The next time you see a business on the rocks because of a media relations disaster they created with poor crisis management, ask yourself, “Are we ready for our crisis?"
For a no-cost phone consultation, call crisis management and reputation management expert Mark McDonald at (402) 309-0721.
Serving clients nationwide including Nebraska, Lincoln, Omaha, Fremont, Hastings, York, and Eastern Nebraska.
About our crisis management firm
The Rourk Public Relations agency and its public relations consultants are experts at crisis management, reputation management, media training, media relations, public relations crisis management and more for clients in Lincoln, Omaha, Hastings, Fremont, York, Eastern Nebraska, and throughout Nebraska.
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