Crisis Communication

Crisis communications are generally considered 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. These challenges may come in the form of an investigation from a government agency, a criminal allegation, a media inquiry, a shareholders lawsuit, a violation of environmental regulations, or any of a number of other scenarios involving the legal, ethical, or financial standing of the entity.

By definition a crisis is an unexpected and detrimental situation or event. Crisis communications can play a significant role by transforming the unexpected into the anticipated and responding accordingly.

A crisis is any situation that threatens the integrity or reputation of a company, usually brought on by adverse or negative media attention. These situations can be any kind of legal dispute, theft, accident, fire, flood or manmade disaster that could be attributed to the company. It can also be a situation where in the eyes of the media or general public the company is not reacting to one of the above situations in the appropriate manner.

If handled correctly the damage can be minimized.

One thing to remember that is crucial in a crisis is tell it all, tell it fast and tell the truth. If the does this, they have done all that can to minimize the situation.

Effectively responding to the challenges of a crisis requires more than the typical skills of the public relations professional, requiring instead experience at the highest levels of the field, such as investigative reporting, politics, etc. Crisis communications can include crafting thorough and compelling statements, known as “messages,” often tested by research and polling.
Effective crisis communications strategies will typically consider achieving most, if not all, of the following objectives:

> Maintain connectivity > Allow distributed access > Streamline communication processes > Maintain information security > Ensure uninterrupted audit trails > Deliver high volume communications > Support multi-channel communications > Remove dependencies on paper based processes > Provide instant access to accurate information.

Employees play a very vital role in crisis situation, as they are the representatives of the company. Along with external constituents it is required that internal constituents be communicated of the situation. Timely communication of crisis situation helps in avoiding rumors and false facts. Management should communicate in oral and in written with its constituent’s viz. employees, stake holders, suppliers etc. These days’ companies use various means to keep its constituents informed like company newsletter, e-mail communication.