In the middle of the night, the nationwide travel company ceased operations. Tens of thousands of airline passengers who relied on their Verified Identity Pass -- and had paid big money for its service -- were out of luck. The company emailed clients the data was safe, but the money was gone. It then took down its website and stopped answering the phone. As a reporter covering the issue, my only source of information was an evasive email, travel industry critics and upset passengers. There was no one to speak on behalf of the company.
It was a lesson in what not to do.
Crisis Communications 101:
According to Public Relations, a Values-Driven Approach, there are four stages of a crisis:
- The warning stage: when there is still time to act
- The point of no return: when the crisis is unavoidable and you are forced to react
- The cleanup: where you try to minimize damage and move forward
- Normal: or really, the new normal.
The Warning Stage is the most critical point of a crisis. It is when you have the most power to change the outcome. I have always told PR professionals that the best way to head-off a crisis is to get in front of it.
“During a crisis, many companies are "too slow" to identify that they have a problem, says CUNA's Rick Amme. "It's better to give the media something than nothing and then become road kill… people will want to know when you learned about the problem and what you did to fix it."
TIP: After losing nearly $82 billion and filing for Chapter 11 protection, General Motors launched its Reinvention campaign on Youtube and Facebook. Strategic Public Relations says “The company is being as transparent as possible to tell their story on what’s next.”
And it may be working, Business Week’s Jon Fine reports “GM’s positive mentions online have picked up significantly in the two weeks since the ad began airing.”
