Crisis Communication Plan

Week three we had guest speaker Greg Kamp from Dixon Schwabl who spoke about the importance of Crisis Communications Planning. Just as with planning in marketing, advertising and public relations, it is also important to have an integrated Crisis Communications Plan (CCP). Because a crisis will happen when you least expect them it is crucial to make sure everyone in the organization knows what to do from the CEO to the receptionist who answers the phones.

Greg began his discussion on CCP by defining “crisis” as a “situation or issue that affects the masses.” For example, the Tylenol scare in the 80’s was a “crisis,” not someone going postal at work and harming people. For isolated issues, like the later, organizations should develop a “readiness plan” designed to deal with these situations. Therefore, the focus of this blog entry will be CCP.

The marketing department of an organization should have a conversation with upper management / CEO regarding “what could happen” within their organization and how to plan for crisis. Although this will not be a well received topic, the conversation needs to happen and needs to engage “dark thinking” to determine what realistically could happen. Greg defined dark thinking as “the worse things that could happen.” From this conversation / brainstorm a proper CCP will take roughly 6-months to develop. Keep in mind that no one likes to talk about or plan for crisis, but when an organization is ready to deal with the reality a CCP might follow this outline:

1. Determine all the possible scenarios using “dark thinking” and create your plan to deal with these crises.
2. Create “dark website” that can go live in a moment’s notice (no longer than 30-minutes from time of crisis). This site should include your crisis plan information and templates for press releases, statements, and any other communication you may need during your crisis. More information is better than not enough. IMPORTANT: make sure the receptionist answering the phone knows to point crisis inquires to the “dark site” in order to eliminate confusion and control out going information. Site should be updated every 90-days too!
3. Print and store in a safe place your entire CCP, including all stake holder contacts. Update this information every 90-days.
4. Develop a crisis team using members from each department or element of the organization to gain a broad perspective and to cover all the bases.
5. Determine who will be the media spokes person. Make sure this person is professionally “media trained.” Make sure the person has the right personality for the crisis message.
6. Determine all of your stake holders. Know who your audience and how to communicate with them before the crisis breaks.
7. Determine how you will communicate with your audience, i.e. phone, email, Twitter, website, fax, etc. All press communications should be made within an hour of the crisis. Quick reaction time is important!
8. Rehearse crisis mode and update CCP every 90-days.
9. The marketing department should be in charge of executing the CCP – don’t leave this up to the CEO or other management as they will have enough to deal with.
10. Have a crisis / readiness room within the organization where members of the crisis team will meet to execute the CCP.