Crisis PR - How to Plan For the Unexpected

You can never plan for every eventuality but putting a crisis PR plan together will save you time and effort when the unexpected happens. It will enable you to do the ground work and define and develop crisis PR systems, processes and briefing information that can be used straight away. You will have your arms full with dealing with the incident, so you need to know that your crisis communications can go into action at short notice.

When you are considering writing a crisis PR plan it's worth considering seven core elements:
An assessment of the risks faced by the company. Potential risks might relate to any of the following areas; staff, service/product provision, legal, financial, corporate, economic, political, technological, customers, insurance the policies, procedures, systems and practices that are in place to minimize risk regulations that the business must adhere to - set down by law, by governing bodies and membership associations

Readiness - the process in place that provides warning of potential crises and ensures that it is recorded, reported and managed swiftly. This should be accompanied by up-to-date background briefing information and essential contact details that will be needed should something happen
Response - managing your crisis PR so that so that your stakeholders and key audiences are kept informed - staff, shareholders, clients, industry associations, representative bodies, financial analysts, etc

Recovery - you may need to take steps to rebuild part of the business, once the PR crisis has been dealt with. It's important to think about who you need to communicate with during that period
Review - learning from a crisis is invaluable. You should review your crisis PR plan after a crisis to assess its effectiveness and how improvements can be made.

The aim of the crisis PR plan is to enable you to make decisions and take swift action rather than being bogged down with tasks and research that will distract you from managing the crisis itself. Assume that an incident comes to light in about ten minutes' time - if that happens then you will need a number of things, including the following:

Contact details for local hotels should you need to hold a press conference at short notice

A checklist for all the items you would need for a crisis PR meeting with senior staff

Up-to-date briefing material on the company to make available to the press and media within the hour

Clarity around the key roles needed in a crisis and responsibilities for each member of the crisis PR team

Contingency plans for responsibilities should someone be away on holiday

Out of hours contact details for senior staff

A listing of your stakeholders so you can check who you need to communicate with

Access to your office out of hours

Contact details for press and media should you need to issue a statement

Facility for a customer helpline

Facility to update your website out of hours with important information for customers

Contact details for the person you need to contact should you need to halt advertising.

Never assume that because all crises are different you cannot put in some crisis PR planning to make handling easier. Exactly what is needed will differ by type of organization but that does not mean you shouldn't make efforts to put a crisis PR plan in place. Often, you can enhance your reputation with key audiences in the way that you handle a crisis. Handling a crisis can be stressful and fraught with difficulty - a crisis PR Plan will help to take some of the pain out of handling the incident and help put you on the front foot.

Source: Debbie Leven link