Crisis communication

Crisis communication is sometimes 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.

Crisis communication professionals preach that an organization’s reputation is often its most valuable asset. When that reputation comes under attack, protecting and defending it becomes the highest priority. This is particularly true in today’s 24 hour news cycle, fuelled by government investigations, Congressional or parliamentary hearings, lawsuits, and "gotcha journalism". When events like these happen, the media firestorm can quickly overwhelm the ability of the entity to effectively respond to the demands of the crisis. To emerge with its reputation intact, an organization must anticipate every move and respond immediately and with confidence. Companies facing such a threat will often bring in experienced crisis communications specialists to help prepare and guide them through the process.

"A large part of crisis communication is the prevention of situations before they escalate to full-blown crises," said Steve Honig, president of The Honig Company, LLC, a firm that handles crises situations for several high-visibility companies. "The practice of crisis communication is a predictive art, whereby you must make correct assumptions and determine appropriate courses of action within a very short period of time."

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, and the White House.

Crisis communication can include crafting thorough and compelling statements, known as “messages,” often tested by research and polling. A rapid response capability—pioneered by the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign operatives and refined during Bill Clinton's eight years under attack by his political adversaries while in the White House, has also become an essential element of crisis communication. Additional tactics may include proactive media outreach to get messages and context to the media, identifying and recruiting credible third-party allies who can attest to the company’s side of the story, and striking first, not waiting to be hit.

Crisis communication is a part of larger process referred to as crisis management though it may well be a major tool of handling a crisis situation in government, organization or business.

Crisis Communication is also sometimes considered a sub-speciality of the Business Continuity area of modern business. The aim of crisis communication in this context is to assist organisations to achieve continuity of critical business processes and information flows under crisis, disaster or event driven circumstances.

Responding quickly, efficiently, effectively and in a premeditated way are the primary objectives of an effective crisis communication strategy and/or solution. Harnassing technology and people to ensure a rapid and co-ordinated response to a range of potentially crippling scenarios distinguishes a well thought out and executed plan from a poorly or ill-considered one. The inherent lag time in marshalling responses to a crisis can result in considerable losses to company revenues, reputation as well as substantially impacting on costs.

Effective crisis communication strategies will typically consider achieving most, if not all, of the following objectives:

Maintain connectivity
Be readily accessible to the news media
Show empathy for the people involved
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

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

Some of the most effective recent examples of crisis communication include Richard Branson's (Virgin) and John Armitt's (Network Rail) dignified press conference after the Grayrigg rail disaster of 2007 and US Airways handling of the media after their crashlanding on the Hudson river.

Source: Wikipedia link