Some companies sometimes face difficult situations, so you need to know what to do in a reputational crisis. It doesn’t hurt that you know the correct techniques you could apply if such a case arises in your company.
Keep in mind that a company’s online reputation is the rating it achieves through the proper use and management of resources in digital media. But also outside of them, because if you have a store or office and you generate bad experiences, you expose yourself to bad comments that can reach the platforms.
Faced with a world where competition is growing more and more, companies try to take care of their reputation, because their continuity in the market will depend on it. However, if you encounter problems, you should know what to do and also what to avoid.
Find out what to do in the event of a reputational crisis
Think that the slightest mistake, lack of communication or poor service can seriously damage your business. That’s why you need to be clear about what to do in a reputational crisis; it’s about knowing the strategies you need to put in place right away:
1.- Study the situation
Although it is difficult to predict this kind of situation, you should not panic. The first thing you should do is to analyze how serious the crisis your company is involved in is. A good idea is to ask your team to clarify what happened. And also see how the press and the general public interpret it.
You can rely on media monitoring tools, as they provide a broad and quick view of how consumers are responding on social media. Many of them give you the ability to see the most talked about topics, as well as social influencers.
What aspects do you need to evaluate? Whether sentiment about your company has changed dramatically or whether mentions of your brand have skyrocketed. With these two indicators you can determine how viral the crisis is and whether users are talking about it positively or negatively.
You need to make sure that negative coverage is coming from a single source or multiple locations. Because in some particular cases it is more appropriate to respond directly to those who are dissatisfied than to make a public statement.
2.- Assign tasks to selected personnel to communicate
Knowing exactly what has happened, the next step is to communicate it to all your employees. Do not hide anything from them and show them what the company will do to try to get out of the crisis. That done, you need to start assigning tasks and determine who is the chosen one to communicate with the press.
You should rehearse the possible answers to the initial questions as you prepare your official statement. At this point, you need to take care of every detail, so it is advisable that your employees do not discuss the crisis publicly without first knowing your opinion.
Then you must decide who will be responsible for presiding over crisis management and handling public relations. You need to keep the entire executive team informed, you need to be the bridge between stakeholders, i.e. partners, customers, employees … And don’t forget to record every detail, decision, external response and resolution.
3.- Offer a specific solution for your audience
In your strategy on what to do in the event of a reputation crisis, you need to have another very clear point. And that is that you cannot give a generic solution to a specific problem. So before you offer an official response, you need to think about who will impact the crisis and focus on what you need to worry about.
Think that if your problem was caused by a campaign that was offensive to some people, customers will want a response to that issue. And if the public response has been really negative before, the prudent thing to do would be to eliminate it with a statement of apology.
The key is to provide direct solutions to the problems that have occurred, otherwise people will feel ignored by their statement. And to make this job easier, you can use tools that help you keep track of the most used keywords about your company at that time. This will give you clues as to what the audience’s initial concerns are.
4.- Define the means you will use to respond
At this point you already have a detailed understanding of the situation you face, so it is time to respond to the crisis. Based on how this may affect your stakeholders, decide which is the best channel to respond. You have several effective options for these cases:
- Make a statement through social media, in text or video, although the latter format may be more receptive.
- You can issue a press release.
- Schedule a press conference.
- Create a blog post.
It is not necessary to choose just one, you can combine them all and make your statement have a greater reach. Keep in mind that a public response is necessary, especially if the crisis was generated on digital platforms.
The key thing is for the company to take responsibility, show what really happened, and show how the brand is working to solve the problem. Never hide the crisis or ignore it; denying it will only exacerbate it.
5.- Measure the impact of your statements
Among the points on what to do in the event of a reputational crisis, it also highlights measuring the impact your statement(s) had. This is the best way to know if they are working and how your words have been received.
For this reason, it is important to monitor social media, as this gives you the ability to track how people are responding. You need to make sure that the perception and sentiment about the brand is changing, otherwise you need to take other measures.
Consider whether you sent out a press release using a specialized PR distribution tool. In this case, you can track how many people opened the content and how much time they spent reading the statement.
Find out what not to do
Now that you know what to do during a reputation crisis, it is time for you to know what not to do. This will help you better apply a communication strategy and avoid making the situation you are already in worse:
A.- Do you think you are ready for a crisis.
Having confidence in some cases is good, but it is not good to believe that you have everything under control in a crisis. Nor do you think you can deal with it with the same resources you used in another situation where your reputation was affected.
In fact, any company, regardless of size, is vulnerable to a reputational crisis. And you need to be clear that there is no ideal guide to the exact steps to take in such a situation. Because not all are caused by the same factors and not all companies work with the same resources to solve them.
B.- Not having suitable spokesmen
Something you need to keep in mind is that not everyone is suited to deal with the situation. So you must avoid assigning unsuitable spokespersons to solve the crisis your business is going through. Think that the person in charge must be a worthy representative of your business, possess communication skills and be an expert in media training.
Choosing the wrong person or team can be very costly; in fact, it could make the crisis worse and would be fatal to your reputation. That is why it is so important to have a team of qualified professionals. But this will also require different tools and previous training to become a qualified professional.
