Bad publicity is never welcome. But it’s how you handle adverse publicity that could be the making –  or breaking – of your business.

Thinking that bad publicity won’t happen to you isn’t an option. If you plan and prepare for a crisis you’ll give yourself a much better chance of limiting the damage and staying in control of the situation. Simply being prepared for adverse publicity can help you stop a bad story becoming a terrible one.

If you find yourself in the spotlight, albeit for the wrong reasons, take the opportunity to show your business in the best possible light under the circumstances.

Disgruntled employees, complaints from customers, crises and accidents all make strong news stories. Be prepared for bad publicity.

Put your side of the story across.

  • If a journalist contacts you, check what the deadline is, carefully construct a written statement, and respond in time.
  • An article saying that you refused to comment always looks bad.
  • Avoid ‘off the record’ comments. In a serious situation, there is no such thing.
  • Do not let journalists speak directly to your employees.
  • Let all employees know who to refer journalists’ enquiries to.
  • Take action.

Crisis communication is a sub-specialty of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. The communication scholar Timothy Coombs defines crisis communication as “the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes.”

Meaning can be socially constructed; because of this, the way that the stakeholders of an organization view an event (positively, neutrally, or negatively) is a major contributing factor to whether the event will become a crisis. Additionally, it is important to separate a true crisis situation from an incident. The term crisis “should be reserved for serious events that require careful attention from management.”

Crisis management has been defined as “a set of factors designed to combat crises and to lessen the actual damages inflicted.” Crisis management should not merely be reactionary; it should also consist of preventative measures and preparation in anticipation of potential crises. Effective crisis management has the potential to greatly reduce the amount of damage the organization receives as a result of the crisis, and may even prevent an incident from ever developing into a crisis.

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Categories of crisis management

Coombs identifies three phases of crisis management.

  • Pre-crisis: preparing ahead of time for crisis management in an effort to prevent a future crisis from occurring. This category is also sometimes called the prodromal crisis stage.
  • Crisis: the response to an actual crisis event.
  • Post-crisis: occurs after the crisis has been resolved; the efforts by the crisis management team to understand why the crisis occurred and to learn from the event.

Inside the management step, Bodeau-Ostermann identifies 6 successive phases: – reaction, where the group behaves on first sight, – extension, because the crisis dilutes itself and touches neighbours, – means (material and human), which constitutes an overview of success/failures of emergency reaction, – focus, stands as a concrete action or event on which the team leaders concentrate to fight crisis, – retraction, is the moment where the group diminishes means involved, in accordance with its aims, – rehabilitation, where, as a last step, result is, for the group, emergence of new values, stronger than the older. Article published on RIMS (Risk Management), New-York, May 2004.

 

Crisis communication tactics

Crisis communication tactics during the pre-crisis stage may include the following: researching and collecting information about crisis risks specific to the organization; creating a crisis management plan that includes making decisions ahead of time about who will handle specific aspects of a crisis if and when it occurs; preparing press release templates for the organization’s public relations team in the event of a crisis; and the chain of command that all employees will follow in the dissemination of information to all publics during a crisis situation. A rapid response crisis communications team should be organized during the pre-crisis stage  and all individuals who will help with the actual crisis communication response should be trained.

Crisis communication tactics during the crisis stage may include the following: the identification of the incident as a crisis by the organization’s crisis management team; the collection and processing of pertinent information to the crisis management team for decision making; and also the dissemination of crisis messages to both internal and external publics of the organization.

Crisis communication tactics during the post-crisis stage may include the following: reviewing and dissecting the successes and failures of the crisis management team in order to make any necessary changes to the organization, its employees, practices, or procedures; and providing follow-up crisis messages as necessary.

 

 

Preventing bad press coverage

Planning and preparation can significantly reduce the chances of getting bad press.  Staff training is essential – your employees are ambassadors for your firm. No matter what their job, any member of staff has the power to enhance or ruin the reputation of your business.

Make sure your staff understand the importance of customer service and are the living embodiment of your firm’s positive brand values. Put in place procedures for handling customer complaints so that a small problem does not become a big headache. Research shows that customers who are happy with the way their complaint was handled are more likely to spread good word-of-mouth recommendations.

 

What to do when your business gets bad publicity

Complaints from customers, faulty products and accidents all make strong news stories – as do any crisis affecting your industry that could give your firm a bad name by association.

If your firm is getting critical coverage in the media on online, respond quickly, honestly and decisively. If you are in the wrong, it’s vital to own up and apologise. Never say ‘no comment’ – it sends the message that you’re in the wrong and suggests that you feel no remorse – and the press may keep digging for dirt. Face up to the situation and you can begin to restore the reputation of your business.

In a PR crisis, communication is the key to managing it. Keep the media, customers, your staff and suppliers informed. Tell your side of the story with a written statement and make sure the head of the business is available to talk to the press and others about what went wrong and what is being done about it.

Meanwhile, ensure that your employees do not talk to the press without permission and field enquiries from journalists to the right person.

 

Remember that bad publicity can offer a chance for your business to show how decent it is. If you apologise, make amends and explain how you’re going to do better in future, you will find that in many cases the public will actually be very forgiving.

 

What to do after a PR crisis

After getting bad publicity you actively need to produce some positive PR. Now is the time to emphasise some positive stories, such as improved practices and community involvement. Encourage your staff to volunteer or support a charity and lead by example. At the same time, make sure you are doing business in the most honourable way and keeping your customers satisfied.