Crisis Management

What Is Crisis Management?

Crisis management describes the means by which a company avoids or survives a PR crisis with minimal damage to their reputation.

Companies would do well to have a crisis management plan in place so that employees and executives do not make rash, panicked decisions in light of social media censure.

Why Is It Important to Have a Good Crisis Management Model?

No matter how careful and honest a company is, danger will eventually appear. Not having a plan to avoid or mitigate a crisis is neglectful; not using data science to inform your crisis management plan is wasteful.

What Internal Data Should I Have for a Good Crisis Management Model?

Internal data is the most important kind of data to have for a crisis management model. In particular, make sure to have a crisis plan for your team or company to follow.

Aside from this, use up-to-date and thorough data on your customers and social media. Start with transaction data, especially from on returning customers, and subscription numbers (especially changes in new subscribers vs unsubscribers).

After this, account for any complaints coming directly from your customers. What do they say on your social media accounts? In your feedback requests, surveys, or product reviews on third-party websites? What do your customer service agents report?

What External Data Is Essential for a Good Model?

For a good crisis management model, you must monitor the internet, especially social media, for mentions of your company, its subsidiaries, its partners, and its products. Complaints or bad reviews must be addressed while positive experiences must be highlighted. Additionally, keep watch for industry reports or news that may impact you or your industry in some way.

Most importantly, measure your website traffic and online mentions. That is to say, record detailed site traffic data, from search terms people use to reach your site to referral addresses to outgoing links. Traffic and search term data can show you how much interest there now is in your company as well as associations people make with your business. Outgoing links, however, give more of an indication of how people feel about what they see. In other words, after visiting your site, do people go to Twitter to talk about what they saw? Or do they go somewhere completely different because they do not feel strongly about what they saw? Either result provides an indication of how concerned you should be about this new crisis.

Note, traffic data also provides demographic information about site visitors. If you have a spike in traffic consisting of outraged visitors who are not and may never be in your target demographic, you may rate your PR crisis less serious than it may at first seem.

What External Data May Prove Useful for a Good Model?

Additional external PR management data are examples of how other companies handled their own PR crises. No matter their industry, no matter how well or how poorly they handled their PR crisis, there are lessons that you can incorporate into your own crisis management plan.

What Are the Main Challenges of this Use Case?

The main challenge of managing a PR crisis is to curtail the urge to panic. While a crisis response must be swift, it must also be appropriate to the offense. Your company must show that it has and will continue to take steps to mitigate any damage to customers and prevent a similar event from happening in the future. Official statements and personal communications to customers must be understanding and professional. Striking the right tone and managing crisis fallout requires careful consideration, not panicked response.

Interesting Case Studies and Blogs to Look Into

RockDove Solutions: Crisis Management Case Study: Volkswagen’s 5 Years of Pain
StartUp Washington: When Trouble Strikes: A Small Business Crisis Planner

Tangible Examples of Impact

Whether it’s becoming more like consulting firms and advertising agencies or adding new offerings like research from data insights and surveys, PR firms have spent years integrating in deeper ways with clients… The way companies communicate is also shifting. While earned media has become increasingly difficult when consumers’ attention is both limited and fragmented, Constantinople says investment in brands’ owned media properties is where the biggest shifts have occurred. She says brands are also spending more on internal communications to help clients’ employees better understand what’s happening inside and outside their businesses.

Forbes: Meet America’s Best PR Agencies 2021