A crisis communications plan isn’t very useful if it isn’t up to date. Reporters and their mobile phone numbers, internal contacts for gathering information, and even statement templates — all must be reviewed and updated.
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LaCroix, the sparkling water with the crazy-colorful packaging, was hit with a class action alleging that it lies about using all-natural ingredients and that its product in fact contains chemicals, including one used in cockroach insecticide. The brand’s response has been flat rather than sparkling, and one aspect brought giggles.
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The New York Times had a nice piece on Great Western Railway’s operation for social-media listening — and responding. The company, which runs one of the largest train franchises in the U.K., has issued 30,000 apologies on social media, mostly Twitter, since the beginning of the year. From our point of view, it’s all worth it in terms of having money in the reputation bank when a crisis hits.
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Many of the do’s and don’ts of working with reporters generally (such as pitching stories) also apply to crisis situations. But there are some differences. It’s constructive to compare and contrast.
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One of the main reasons to have a crisis communications plan is to decide ahead of time the roles of each team member. Typically, the members will have various duties at different stages of the crisis. It’s important to make clear what those are.
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A bizarre and tragic incident last week gave rise to an impressive example of transparency in crisis communications by the Dallas Police Department. The episode is also an example of how tough it is to grapple with information in a crisis.
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