Crisis Response

The crisis response is what management does and says after the crisis hits. Public relations plays a critical role in the crisis response by helping to develop the messages that are sent to various publics. A great deal of research has examined the crisis response. That research has been divided into two sections:

1. the initial crisis response
2. reputation repair and behavioral intentions

1. Initial Response
Practitioner experience and academic research have combined to create a clear set of guidelines for how to respond once a crisis hits. The initial crisis response guidelines focus on three points: 

• be quick

Be quick seems rather simple, provide a response in the first hour after the crisis occurs. That puts a great deal of pressure on crisis managers to have a message ready in a short period of time. Again, we can appreciate the value of preparation and templates. The rationale behind being quick is the need for the organization to tell its side of the story. In reality, the organization’s side of the story are the key points management wants to convey about the crisis to its stakeholders. When a crisis occurs, people want to know what happened. Crisis experts often talk of an information vacuum being created by a crisis. The news media will lead the charge to fill the information vacuum and be a key source of initial crisis information. If the organization having the crisis does not speak to the news media, other people will be happy to talk to the media. These people may have inaccurate information or may try to use the crisis as an opportunity to attack the organization. As a result, crisis managers must have a quick response. An early response may not have much “new” information but the organization positions itself as a source and begins to present its side of the story. Crisis preparation will make it easier for crisis managers to respond quickly. 

• be accurate

Obviously accuracy is important anytime an organization communicates with publics. People want accurate information about what happened and how that event might affect them. Because of the time pressure in a crisis, there is a risk of inaccurate information. If mistakes are made, they must be corrected. However, inaccuracies make an organization look inconsistent. Incorrect statements must be corrected making an organization appear to be incompetent. The philosophy of speaking with one voice in a crisis is a way to maintain accuracy. 

• be consistent

Speaking with one voice does not mean only one person speaks for the organization for the duration of the crisis. As Barton notes, it is physically impossible to expect one person to speak for an organization if a crisis lasts for over a day. Watch news coverage of a crisis and you most likely will see multiple people speak. The news media want to ask questions of experts so they may need to talk to a person in operations or one from security. That is why Coombs emphasizes the public relations department plays more of a support role rather than being “the” crisis spokespersons. The crisis team needs to share information so that different people can still convey a consistent message. The spokespersons should be briefed on the same information and the key points the organization is trying to convey in the messages. The public relations department should be instrumental in preparing the spokespersons. Ideally, potential spokespersons are trained and practice media relations skills prior to any crisis. The focus during a crisis then should be on the key information to be delivered rather than how to handle the media. Once more preparation helps by making sure the various spokespersons have the proper media relations training and skills.

More recently, crisis experts have recommended a third component to an initial crisis response, crisis managers should express concern/sympathy for any victims of the crisis. Victims are the people that are hurt or inconvenienced in some way by the crisis.
Victims might have lost money, become ill, had to evacuate, or suffered property damage.
In addition, crisis managers must work to have a consistent message between spokespersons.

Initial Crisis Response Best Practices:

• Be quick and try to have initial response within the first hour.
• Be accurate by carefully checking all facts.
• Be consistent by keeping spokespeople informed of crisis events and key message points.
• Make public safety the number one priority.
• Use all of the available communication channels including the Internet, Intranet, and mass notification systems.
• Provide some expression of concern/sympathy for victims
• Remember to include employees in the initial response.
• Be ready to provide stress and trauma counseling to victims of the crisis and their families, including employees.

2. Reputation Repair and Behavioral Intentions
A number of researchers in public relations, communication, and marketing have shed light on how to repair the reputational damage a crisis inflicts on an organization.

Master List of Reputation Repair Strategies:

• Attack the accuser: crisis manager confronts the person or group claiming something is wrong with the organization.
• Denial: crisis manager asserts that there is no crisis.
• Scapegoat: crisis manager blames some person or group outside of the organization for the crisis.
• Excuse: crisis manager minimizes organizational responsibility by denying intent to do harm and/or claiming inability to control the events that triggered the crisis.
• Provocation: crisis was a result of response to some one else’s actions.
• Defeasibility: lack of information about events leading to the crisis situation.
• Accidental: lack of control over events leading to the crisis situation.
• Good intentions: organization meant to do well
• Justification: crisis manager minimizes the perceived damage caused by the crisis.
• Reminder: crisis managers tell stakeholders about the past good works of the organization.
• Ingratiation: crisis manager praises stakeholders for their actions.
• Compensation: crisis manager offers money or other gifts to victims.
• Apology: crisis manager indicates the organization takes full responsibility for the crisis and asks stakeholders for forgiveness.

It should be noted that reputation repair can be used in the crisis response phase, post-crisis phase, or both. Not all crises need reputation repair efforts. Frequently the instructing information and expressions of concern are enough to protect the reputation. When a strong reputation repair effort is required, that effort will carry over into the post-crisis phase. Or, crisis managers may feel more comfortable waiting until the post-crisis phase to address reputation concerns.

Crisis managers follow a two-step process to assess the reputational threat of a crisis. The first step is to determine the basic crisis type. A crisis managers considers how the news media and other stakeholders are defining the crisis. Coombs and Holladay (2002) had respondents evaluate crisis types based on attributions of crisis responsibility. They distilled this data to group the basic crises according to the reputational threat each one posed. Table 6 provides a list The basic crisis types and their reputational threat.

The basic Crisis Types by Attribution of Crisis Responsibility by Coombs and Holladay:

• Victim Crises: Minimal Crisis Responsibility
• Natural disasters: acts of nature such as tornadoes or earthquakes.
• Rumors: false and damaging information being circulated about you organization.
• Workplace violence: attack by former or current employee on current employees on-site.
• Product Tampering/Malevolence: external agent causes damage to the organization.
• Accident Crises: Low Crisis Responsibility
• Challenges: stakeholder claim that the organization is operating in an inappropriate manner.
• Technical error accidents: equipment or technology failure that cause an industrial accident.
• Technical error product harm: equipment or technology failure that cause a product to be defective or potentially harmful.
• Preventable Crises: Strong Crisis Responsibility
• Human-error accidents: industrial accident caused by human error.
• Human-error product harm: product is defective or potentially harmful because of human error.
• Organizational misdeed: management actions that put stakeholders at risk and/or violate the law.

Attribution Theory-based Crisis Communication Best Practices:

• All victims or potential victims should receive instructing information, including recall information. This is one-half of the base response to a crisis.
• All victims should be provided an expression of sympathy, any information about corrective actions and trauma counseling when needed. This can be called the “care response.” This is the second-half of the base response to a crisis.
• For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, instructing information and care response is sufficient.
• For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response.
• For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response.
• For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response.
• For crises with strong attributions of crisis responsibility, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response.
• The compensation strategy is used anytime victims suffer serious harm.
• The reminder and ingratiation strategies can be used to supplement any response.
• Denial and attack the accuser strategies are best used only for rumor and challenge crises.

In general, a reputation is how stakeholder perceive an organization. A reputation is widely recognized as a valuable, intangible asset for an organization and is worth protecting. But the threat posed by a crisis extends to behavioral intentions as well. Increased attributions of organizational responsibility for a crisis result in a greater likelihood of negative word-of-mouth about the organization and reduced purchase intention from the organization. Early research suggests that lessons designed to protect the organization’s reputation will help to reduce the likelihood of negative word-of-mouth and the negative effect on purchase intentions as well.

10 important rules in Crisis Communication: