Czaro Strategic Communications

With Amazon’s “glitchgate” and Domino’s “videogate” taking over the headlines, it’s important for all companies to review their crisis communications plans. Here are six things that every organization should have in place, because it’s not if a crisis will happen, but when it will occur. Successful implementation of these steps could have a bearing on if a crisis escalates.

• Establish a crisis team. This is usually comprised of members of the executive team, public/media relations, communications, human resources, investor relations and general counsel. A crisis team should not be hastily pulled together. It should exist in advance with each member knowing their role.
• Plan for the worst. Companies should have regular training exercises where the crisis team works through different scenarios. The best time to role play is when a crisis hits another business – especially a competitor.
• Respond in a timely manner. There’s a 24-hour window to respond to the crisis. Failure to do so allows the void to be filled with alternative message and can appear that the company doesn’t care or isn’t organized.
• Be honest and say the right things. The response must come from a credible source, be believable and come across as genuine. If the CEO is not up to the task, then consider two things: training or find someone who’s up to the challenge.
• Track everything. The days of relying on newspaper clips for information is in the past. Companies must monitor print and broadcast as well as all social media including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, MySpace and others. Monitoring opens the door to public engagement, which can enhance and strengthen the brand, producing healthy dialogue and heading off crises before they become viral.
• Make allies. Embrace social media users as a clearly defined target audience. In the Domino’s case, bloggers notified Domino’s executives about the offensive video and then went the extra step to actually track down the employees and the location of the store utilizing Google maps.

You’ll never know how you’re going to perform in a crisis until you’re up to your knees in the problem. Training, roll playing and embracing these six steps can give you the necessary confidence to be successful when the time arises – and it will.