No one wants to believe that a potentially reputation-damaging crisis will happen to them. But it does. How quickly could one of these situations happen to your organization, and how prepared are you for its fall-out?
- An employee, while out on an official errand for your company, hits an elderly pedestrian and critically injures her. Your employee was texting on his phone at the time of the accident.
- Your board of directors takes an action that creates angst with your company's shareholders and a small group of them are launching a rather public campaign about your company and its practices.
- One of the products you manufactured or built causes harm or damages to a purchaser six months after it was purchased.
- You need to fire a very publicly visible key employee of your company for cause... and you need to do it quickly and with minimal damage to your reputation.
- You have to lay off 15% of your workforce in two weeks. How do you handle your internal and external communications?
- A union is going to organize a picket line outside your front door, the one most of your customers use.
- An earthquake hits your company's community; how do you communicate that you are indeed still in business and that your customers can continue to reach you and do business with you?
You can't possibly imagine every negative thing that could happen to your organization... but you can prepare for much of the damage that might occur from situations such as these. KPS3 can assist in the pre-planning and training of your organization should a crisis occur, as well as be the communications experts who can quickly and strategically develop your messaging and communications plan for a crisis if one should occur.
Think
The first stage in our work in crisis communications is analysis and discovery/info-gathering - whether it's a proactive measure before any crisis occurs, or at the initial stages of a crisis in which action is required immediately.
If we are working with a client on a proactive basis, developing a crisis communications plan and policy just in case, then we use our expertise and experience to assess our client's environment, internal resources, and abilities to respond in case of a crisis. We also prescribe the means of response, who should respond and any consistent brand messages we'll want to include in crisis communications. We also develop a program to orient and train all involved internal audiences and external partners.
If we are working with a client in the throes of a crisis, our experience and expertise truly gives our client the best chance at minimizing damage, furthering their messaging in the most positive light, and creating a plan to react quickly and intelligently. This is where KPS3 shines. KPS3's professionals have handled a variety of communications during crisis events for our clients' organizations, including natural disasters, man-made accidents, reputation assaults, litigation support, and management of issues within a company's executive team that threaten the reputation of the organization. In crisis communications, experience counts.
Act
In crisis communications when it's time to pull the trigger, it's reallllly time to pull the trigger. And there can be no missteps. A strong plan developed during the "Think" stage is key. But sure-footed execution of that plan is critical. KPS3's expertise comes into play because during the crisis, there is almost always the need to implement and evaluate... simultaneously. Fast-paced revision of strategy, timing, messaging and more is part of crisis communications management. KPS3 has the skills and experience to be able to advise clients in the moment. In a crisis we consider ourselves on the client's team 24/7, until the crisis is resolved.
Evolve
Part of the evaluation of a crisis communications program often takes place during the "Act" stage, as explained above. However, once a crisis is truly resolved, a formal evaluation is undertaken and KPS3 assists the client in revising the crisis communications plan and policy if needed, and also provide an honest evaluation of KPS3's and the client's performance for future learning opportunities.
KPS3 can provide these Crisis Communications services to your organization:
- Risk assessment
- Proactive crisis communications plan and policy development
- Proactive training for involved staff to prepare should a crisis occur
- Implementation of crisis communications tools not in place (internal and external communications tools, including social media programming)
- Crisis communications implementation plans and timelines once a crisis occurs
- Crisis communications strategic messaging and "angle" once a crisis occurs
- Post crisis evaluation and prescriptions to prevent future problems
