The recent CrowdStrike incident that affected over eight million Microsoft systems, including those in hospitals, banks, emergency response centers, and airports, is likely to be the largest IT outage in history.
Yet Another Example Of Why Companies Need A Robust Crisis Communications Plan
By their nature, crises can impact any business at any time: Just ask Boeing, Silicon Valley Bank, or AT&T. And while crises are unpredictable, that does not prevent organizations from having comprehensive response processes in place that ensure the business preserves trust and is positioned to emerge from the crisis stronger.
Follow These Steps To Ensure You Are Prepared To Address A Crisis
- Have a comprehensive and proactive communications plan. All companies should build a documented crisis communications plan and regularly review and practice it. Having a pre-established plan means you are ready to mitigate the impact, to avoid missteps that could exasperate the impact, and to stop damaging actions that could hurt your brand. Involve, interview, and actively consider leaders and stakeholders throughout the business when constructing your plan (it’s best to go broad to uncover all potential eventualities).
- Identify the players. Crisis communications can involve a lengthy list of roles especially when the crisis is significant. Players to consider include executive leaders, communications experts, spokespeople, business partners, and customer-facing teams (customer support, sales, etc.). An executive sponsor is vital. Outside experts – PR agencies, legal counsel, incident response services firms, and others – can also play key roles.
- Identify the scenarios. You can plan for many types of crises, including security/data breaches, corporate/executive malfeasance, product/service disruptions and recalls, workplace events, natural disasters, and reputation crises. For each crisis scenario, the business should activate a different crisis playbook and tailor its response. A company’s industry, documented risks, and threat intelligence feeds will help in identifying which scenarios are most likely, while some crises will still come as a surprise.
- Lock down the communications process. In a crisis, it is critical to stay on message and to control channels of communication. Have a clear process for what is said and for who is authorized to speak. Designated spokespeople can be subject matter experts, company officials (for example, the CEO), or legal experts. Don’t forget to keep employees, partners and others fully informed too.
- Know the protocol and when to escalate. A process document with contact information should instruct employees how to escalate identified trigger events, which in turn allows the crisis communications lead (usually the VP of corporate communications in conjunction with in-house or outside legal counsel) to determine the appropriate response. This document should also state the type of information desired from the employee escalating the issue. Reward and don’t blame employees that raise the alarm, and foster an internal culture of trust, so you can expose problems rather than allow them to be concealed.
- Prepare and practice. While many executives and spokespeople have media training for typical PR responses, crisis response requires additional training and practice. Prepare for potential crises with simulation and scenario enactment. Schedule tabletop exercises with your detailed and realistic scenarios and play them out as if they were real, including details like media and customer inquiries and social media posts. Crisis simulation drills should include both internal and external participants. The best time to learn how effective (or ineffective) your plan is before you need to execute it. Incorporate any lessons learned into your playbooks and repeat your critical crisis scenarios regularly.
- Consider the levers of trust in your communications. A crisis is not a brand death sentence: How the business responds during the crisis speaks volumes about the company’s character and can, over the long haul, make the brand stronger. Business leaders must show accountability, empathy, transparency and consistency in their communications and actions, with a clear focus on affected audiences. Using these levers of trust as a guiding framework for how the business conducts itself in a crisis will help recover lost brand equity.
If you are a Forrester client, reach out to schedule a guidance session with us to help you build an effective crisis communications plan.
