By Tracy Olmstead Williams
Olmstead Williams Communications
It is critical to be upfront and comprehensive with all crisis communications. Advance planning will significantly diminish any perception by the media and the public of a cover up. It’s a reassuring task to envision unthinkable scenarios and brainstorm about how best to respond.
The following checklist can help guide communications planning for mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, lawsuits, product recalls and worse:
- Be the first to break your own bad news. Even if the solution is elusive, begin with full disclosure.
- Confirm facts, communicate openly and accurately articulate the situation. Your communications team must be fully aware of all the facts.
- Identify key audiences and develop a strategy for each.
- Develop concise, factual messages that can be understood quickly by everyone — internal/employees, media, investors, vendors and outside advisors (accountants, lawyers, public relations and advertising agencies). Have your leadership and crisis team repeat the messages throughout the company verbally and in all written materials.
- Craft detailed Q&As, customer letters, vendor letters, etc., that provide the facts and needed reassurance.
- Don’t neglect your own employees. Protect your people by empowering them with knowledge. They are an exceptionally viral group of communicators.
- If there is a solution to the problem, work toward solving it quickly and as openly as possible. Quite often, the best you can hope for is to mitigate the immediate damage of the crisis by being honest. If you hide something, not only will it be discovered, it will destroy credibility and reputation.
- Use all of the tools at your disposal, including your corporate Web site, internal sites, public relations wire services and social media.
- Continuously monitor online and offline conversations in order to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your strategy and messaging.
- Continue to communicate with al key audiences until the crisis has passed. Consistency is important.
- Learn from the experience and anticipate the next crisis. Plan for likely and even unlikely scenarios, and know the steps you’re going to take before you have to take them.
