Crisis Communication and Reputation Management

1. How to prepare for a crisis (PRE)

• Is it possible to prepare for a crisis 
• why is it important to prepare for potential crisis
• Recognizing the signs (in which circumstances a crisis possibly occurs? 

Crisis is defined as a event or issue that requires decisive and immediate action from the organization.(Joep, C. Corporate Communication: A guide to Theory and Practice)

"It doesn't matter if the cause of the problem is a blown fuse or a tripped circuit. You're powerless to replenish the power without first getting a flashlight, which will help you to locate the cause of the problem. ...First you've got to find the flashlight. ... You know you have one; you just can't remember where you put it last. ...If you plan for this potential crisis during the day, when the lights are working and the sun is shining, one of the first things you may do is calmly locate the flashlights.In assembling a crisis management plan for your business, all you are really doing is locating your own versions of the flashlights well in advance of the actual crisis." Steven Fink, Crisis Management:Planning for the Inevitable (1986)

According to Joep Corrnelissen in "Corporate Communication: A guide to Theory and Practice", the objective of crisis management and crisis communication is to exert control, in so far as possible, over events and organizational activities in ways that reassure stakeholders that their interests are cared for and ensure that the organization complies with social, safety and environmental standards. Such control requires that organizations develop contingency plan to prepare for possible crises as well as communication plans to effectively respond to crisis scenarios when they emerge. While some crises can be prepared in advance, organizations may be confronted by natural accidents and terrorist attack that cannot prevented. But being prepared is half the battle. The other half is about the skills in communicating effectively and responsibly and about taking actions to contain the crisis and limit any negative consequence for stakeholders and for company and its reputation. 

To prepare for it, Prevention involves are designed to reduce known risks that could lead to a crisis. This is part of an organization’s risk management program. Preparation involves creating the crisis management plan, selecting and training the crisis management team, and conducting exercises to test the crisis management plan and crisis management team. Both Barton (2001) and Coombs (2006) document that organizations are better able to handle crises when they (1) have a crisis management plan that is updated at least annually, (2) have a designated crisis management team, (3) conduct exercises to test the plans and teams at least annually, and (4) pre-draft some crisis messages. Table 1 lists the Crisis Preparation Best Practices. The planning and preparation allow crisis teams to react faster and to make more effective decisions.

(Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management, 7e • Carroll & Buchholtz)

2. Crisis communication (During)

• Define the scale of the crisis
• How to manage the communication during crisis?
• what to consider? External/Internal

Crisis expert Timothy Coombs defines 4 types of crisis based on 2 dimensions: Internal-External and Intentional and Unintentional. 

The internal-external refers to whether crisis resulted from something done by the organization itself (.i.e management's actions) or by some other people/group outside the organization.

The intentional-unintentional dimensions relate to controllability of the crisis. Intentional means that crisis event was committed deliberately by some actor

The 2 dimensions together gives 4 mutually exclusive crisis types, as illustrated below:

•Faux Pas:unintentional action that an external agent unintentionally transform into a crisis  interpretation of organizational behavior (social responsibility)
–Organization considers positive or neutral
–Stakeholders view are negative
•Accidents: things happen (product defects, employee injuries, natural disasters)
•Terrorism: external attack. Refers to intentional acts taken by external agents. These are designed to directly harm the organization (hurt customers through product tampering) or indirectly (reduce sales or disrupt production).
•Transgression: intentional acts taken by organization that knowingly place stakeholders or public at risk or harm. Knowingly selling defective or dangerous products, violating laws ... 

Classifying those crises into 4 types as above is useful because provide a basis for identifying the most appropriate crisis communication strategy 

The principle for choosing an appropriate communication strategy is the degree to which the organization is perceived by stakeholders and general public to be responsible or culpable for the crisis

 (Joep, C. Corporate Communication: A guide to Theory and Practice, Crisis Communication, p.202)

Once a strategy has been identified crisis management is to maintain effective control of the release of information and to ensure that no unauthorized information or potentially damaging rumors are allowed to circulate. Failure to respond effectively to media enquiries about a crisis will invariably lead to journalists seeking information from whatever sources they can

It is therefore important to develop communication plans for probable crisis scenarios and establish key responsibilities for communication professionals before a crisis actually happens. 

It includes:

• identification of the organization's key spokespersons
• media training of the CEO, executive directors and key spokesperson
• establishing a crisis communication team and in major crises a press office to field media enquiries and to handle the release of information 
• establishing safe crisis locations where the media can meet and be briefed in the event of hazardous situations; and the 
• identification of contacts at relevant external agencies (.i.e police, fire services) who may need to be contacted in case of crisis  

Or in Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management, 7e, Carroll & Buchholtz pointed out the 10-step: 

• Identify crisis communication team 
• Identify key spokespersons 
• Train your spokespersons
• Establish communications protocols 
• Identify and know the audience
• Anticipate crises 
• Assess the crisis situation 
• Identify key messages to communicate 
• Decide on communication methods 
• Be prepared to ride out the storm

Crisis Communication Channel Preparation Best Practices
1. Be prepared to use part of your current web site to address crisis concerns.
2. Be prepared to use the Intranet or enterprise social networking as one of the channels for reaching employees and any other stakeholders than may have access to your system.
3. Be prepared to utilize a mass notification system for reaching employees and other key stakeholders during a crisis.

4. Be prepared to utilize your existing social media channels for responding to your crisis.

Crisis Response
The crisis response is what management does and says after the crisis hits. Public relations plays a critical role in the crisis response by helping to develop the messages that are sent to various publics. A great deal of research has examined the crisis response. That research has been divided into two sections: (1) the initial crisis response and (2) reputation repair and behavioral intentions.

Initial ResponsePractitioner experience and academic research have combined to create a clear set of guidelines for how to respond once a crisis hits. The initial crisis response guidelines focus on three points: (1) be quick, (2) be accurate, and (3) be consistent.

Web sites, social media, Intranet sites, enterprise social network, and mass notification systems add to the news media coverage and help to provide a quick response. Crisis managers can supply greater amounts of their own information on a web site. Moreover, a growing percentage of stakeholders are relying on social media to get their news, including information about organizations that are relevant to them (Holcomb, Gottfried & Mitchell, 2013). We must assume there is a segment of customers that use the organization’s social media to get information about the organization. Not all targets will use the organization’s web site or social media but enough do to justify the inclusion of web-based communication in a crisis response. Taylor and Kent’s (2007) extensive analysis of crisis web sites over a multiyear period found a slow progression in organizations utilizing web sites and the interactive nature of the web during a crisis. The evidence for social media is not as clear but a similar pattern does seem to be emerging. Mass notification systems deliver short messages to specific individuals through a mix of phone, text messaging, voice messages, and e-mail. The systems also allow people to send responses. In organizations with effective Intranet systems/enterprise social networks, the internal system is a useful vehicle for reaching employees as well. If an organization integrates its Intranet/enterprise social network with suppliers and customers, these stakeholders can be reached as well.

Crisis experts have recommended a third component to an initial crisis response, crisis managers should express concern/sympathy for any victims of the crisis. Victims are the people that are hurt or inconvenienced in some way by the crisis. Victims might have lost money, become ill, had to evacuate, or suffered property damage. Kellerman (2006) details when it is appropriate to express regret. Expressions of concern help to lessen reputational damage and to reduce financial losses. Experimental studies by Coombs and Holladay (1996) and by Dean (2004) found that organizations did experience less reputational damage when an expression of concern is offered verses a response lacking an expression of concern. Cohen (1999) examined legal cases and found early expressions of concern help to reduce the number and amount of claims made against an organization for the crisis. Many other studies support the value of a victim, focus (e.g., Holladay & Coombs, 2013; Kriyantono, 2012; Schwarz, 2012).

However, Tyler (1997) reminds us that there are limits to expressions of concern. Lawyers may try to use expressions of concern as admissions of guilt. A number of states have laws that protect expressions of concern from being used against an organization. Another concern is that as more crisis managers express concern, the expressions of concern may lose their effect of people. Hearit (2007) cautions that expressions of concern will seem too routine. Still, a failure to provide a routine response could hurt an organization. Hence, expressions of concern may be expected and provide little benefit when used but can inflict damage when not used.

Argenti (2002) interviewed a number of managers that survived the 9/11 attacks. His strongest lesson was that crisis managers should never forget employees are important publics during a crisis. The Business Roundtable (2002) and Corporate Leadership Council (2003) remind us that employees need to know what happened, what they should do, and how the crisis will affect them. The earlier discussions of mass notification systems and the Intranet are examples of how to reach employees with information. West Pharmaceuticals had a production facility in Kinston, North Carolina leveled by an explosion in January 2003. Coombs (2004b) examined how West Pharmaceuticals used a mix of channels to keep employees apprised of how the plant explosion would affect them in terms of when they would work, where they would work, and their benefits. Moreover, Coombs (2015) identifies research that suggests well informed employees provide an additional channel of communication for reaching other stakeholders.

Initial Crisis Response Best Practices1. Be quick and try to have initial response within the first hour.
2. Be accurate by carefully checking all facts.
3. Be consistent by keeping spokespeople informed of crisis events and key message points.
4. Make public safety the number one priority.
5. Use all of the available communication channels including the social media, web sits, Intranet, and mass notification systems.
6. Provide some expression of concern/sympathy for victims
7. Remember to include employees in the initial response.
8. Be ready to provide stress and trauma counseling to victims of the crisis and their families, including employees.

3. Effects of crisis (POST)

• How to recover from a crisis
• How to hold up the reputation post-crisis? Consider internal and external elements

In the post-crisis phase, the organization is returning to business as usual. The crisis is no longer the focal point of management’s attention but still requires some attention. As noted earlier, reputation repair may be continued or initiated during this phase. There is important follow-up communication that is required. First, crisis managers often promise to provide additional information during the crisis phase. The crisis managers must deliver on those informational promises or risk losing the trust of publics wanting the information. Second, the organization needs to release updates on the recovery process, corrective actions, and/or investigations of the crisis. The amount of follow-up communication required depends on the amount of information promised during the crisis and the length of time it takes to complete the recovery process. If you promised a reporter a damage estimate, for example, be sure to deliver that estimate when it is ready. West Pharmaceuticals provided recovery updates for over a year because that is how long it took to build a new facility to replace the one destroyed in an explosion.

The digital environment is idea for providing updates. For instance, Twitter is heralded for its ability to pass along information as a story develops (Mitchell & Gustin, 2013). This is similar to the value many observed for Intranets. Dowling (2003), the Corporate Leadership Counsel (2003), and the Business Roundtable (2002) all observed that Intranets are an excellent way to keep employees updated, if the employees have ways to access the site. The same advice holds true if you call the Intranet enterprise social networking. Mass notification systems can be used as well to deliver update messages to employees and other publics via phones, text messages, voice messages, and e-mail. Personal e-mails and phone calls can be used to provide follow-up information as well.

Crisis managers agree that a crisis should be a learning experience. The crisis management effort needs to be evaluated to see what is working and what needs improvement. The same holds true for crisis exercises. Every crisis management exercise should be carefully dissected as a learning experience. The organization should seek ways to improve prevention, preparation, and/or the response. As most books on crisis management note, those lessons are then integrated into the pre-crisis and crisis response phases. That is how management learns and improves its crisis management process. However, experts have found organizations are very bad at learning from crises. This poor learning is due to an inability to be honest about the self-assessment of a crisis effort (Deverel, 2010; Elliott & Macpherson, 2010).

Social media have heightened the importance of remembering a crisis. Crisis remembering is about honoring the victims of the crisis. Two salient aspects of remembering for crisis management are anniversaries and memorials. Anniversaries, especially the first, can result in events to commemorate the crisis. Organizations must be careful to consider how to mark the anniversary and the proper level of involvement in the event for the organization, survivors, and the families of victims. The mishandling of the first anniversary of the Costa Concordia sinking created additional ill will between Carnival Cruise and survivors of the tragic event. Memorials can be physical or digital. West Pharmaceuticals has a physical memorial in their facility to commemorate those who died in the 2007 explosion. An online memorial was created for the 11 workers who died when the Deepwater Horizon sank. Organizations must decide if and how they will become involved in memorials. The best advice is to consult with victims and the families of victims to determine what level of organizational involvement they feel is appropriate (Coombs, 2015). Table 8 lists the Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices.

Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices
1. Deliver all information promised to stakeholders as soon as that information is known.
2. Keep stakeholders updated on the progression of recovery efforts including any corrective measures being taken and the progress of investigations.
3. Analyze the crisis management effort for lessons and integrate those lessons into the organization’s crisis management system.
4. Scan the Internet channels for online memorials.
5. Consult with victims and their families to determine the organization’s role in any anniversary events or memorials.

Case studies

Odwalla and Exxon Valdez - 2 examples of success and failure stories in crisis management. 
BP-Ford-Nestle (Social media crisis management) 

Sources:

Joep, C. Corporate Communication: A guide to Theory and Practice, 3rd edition

Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management, 7e, Carroll & Buchholtz

http://www.instituteforpr.org/crisis-management-communications/

http://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/crisis3.html

http://www.isae.org/crisis-planning-in-a-changing-communications-landscape/ 

http://www.slideshare.net/Brett509/crisis-management?qid=a864cbf3-2595-416a-b56d-d8924c3e113e&v=qf1&b=&from_search=8