Communicating in Crisis

A crisis can come in variety of forms. It could be a contaminated product, a rumor that a brand is making people sick or something physical like a plant fire or natural disaster. Regardless of the source, a crisis can impact a brand’s reputation negatively if not handled well

“Sometimes the damage to brand, whether it’s product, consumer confidence, investor confidence, sometimes those risks are far more dangerous for organizations than the actual physical catastrophe. Replacing a building or structure has a finite cost to it, but damaging your brand so that no one is interested in your products or services is really an issue,” said Robert Chandler, director of the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida.

When an emergency pops up, a company should already have a management plan at the ready. There should be specific outlines for addressing different groups – one for customers and the general public, one for media, one for internal communications and one for shareholders or other stakeholders, Chandler said. Any information that does go out needs to be timed, correctly as well. Getting in front of a story is valuable, but saying too much too early could do more harm than good if there’s no good information available. Senior managers should be the ones to address the different groups, so that it appears the company is taking the issue seriously.

“Having your senior managers being the source of apologies, offers for compensation – having them as the source as opposed to delegating is an important variable in how these messages are going to be seen,” Chandler said.

Preparation for crisis communication should involve some discussion of the communication team with the legal team, so that spokespersons know what they can and cannot say, and when they can say it. Senior managers should sign off on the plan, too, Chandler said. This preparation will

“Crisis situations – emergencies ­– create ample opportunity for a lot of blame to be thrown around. The idea that someone is accusing you of either negligence or malfeasance, or perhaps more damagingly, of simply being inadequately prepared to respond to a crisis,” Chandler said.

  The way a company handles a crisis typically falls into one of six categories, based on William Benoit’s Image Restoration Theory. The theory states that an organization’s central goal, but not it’s only one, should be to restore or protect the reputation of the brand. The communication strategies in Benoit’s theory are:

·      Corrective action – the company tells what it is doing to restore the situation or prevent the problem from occurring again.

Denial – this can be simply denying the accusation or shifting blame to another party.

Evading of responsibility – the company can claim the problem was accidental or unintentional, it’s something the company didn’t know about or is not in control of, the company can claim it’s motives were good or it can provoke by responding to an offensive act.

Mortification – the company admits to the problem and accepts responsibility.

·      Reducing the offensive – can be bolstering (tell positive features of the company without addressing the crisis), reducing the importance of the problem, differentiate by saying the problem is less offensive than other actions, transcend and say the problem is viewed differently in another context, attack the accuser or compensate the victims.

Chandler added one more to the list: silence. This is a strategy of ignoring the accusation and not commenting.

But how does a company decide what communication strategy to use? According to researchers and a study by the Public Relations Society of America, PR practitioners and the public view the strategies differently, with some favored and considered the more ethical approaches, regardless of the type of crisis.

“Our findings reveal that the type of crisis does not impact the selection of the communication strategy as was previously assumed,” said Denise Ferguson, chair and associate professor of communications at Indiana Wesleyan University.

The strategies can be grouped into three tiers, Ferguson said. Tier 1 is the communication strategies that are viewed positively and are typically recommend for almost any crisis. Corrective action, compensation and mortification are in this group, and are considered the most ethical approaches in a crisis.

“Corrective action, compensation and mortification are almost always viewed positively, and those are perceived to be effective and ethical and likely to be recommended strategies in a variety of crisis communication situations,” Ferguson said.

Tier 2 is viewed as mildly negative strategies, but the strategies are sometimes recommended based on the variables of the crisis: bolstering, good intentions, defeasibility, differentiation, transcendence, minimization, counterattack and accidental.

Tier 3 strategies are viewed very negatively and are usually not recommended by professionals. They are provocation, shifting blame, denial and silence, Ferguson said.

But in some cases, a communications practitioner facing a crisis may not be able to use one of the more respected strategies. There might be legal issues or corporate bureaucracies that prevent the company from accepting responsibility and compensating victims. In cases like this, there are situational variables that impact the strategy. The strategy can often depend on responsibility determinants, said J.D. Wallace, associate professor and communications coordinator at Lubbock Christian University. The level of control a company has over the problem, its awareness of the risk, the reputation of the company and its history of previous crises will impact what strategy the company will take.

“In these different situations there may be different strategies,” Wallace said.

If the company has limited fault and a good situation, an informing strategy of taking corrective action, mortification or compensation is the best approach. If the company has little perceived responsibility by the public, then a strategy of diminishing the problem is effective. If there are just rumors of a problem, Wallace said companies will often use a denial strategy, counterattack the accuser or shift the blame. In the worst case, a company with a high level of responsibility or a negative prior history, then the strategy should immediately be to begin rebuilding the reputation of the brand.

As a crisis evolves, the strategy might change, but it’s important that they not overlap, Wallace said.

“You don’t have the luxury of mixing strategies,” he said.

A company that simultaneously tries to deny a problem and rebuild the image will find that neither strategy is effective.