Crisis Communications
Many crises are predictable and preventable. According to the Institute for Crisis Management, mismanagement is the biggest cause of crises. Since humans aren’t perfect the systems we create aren’t perfect and some crises are simply outside our control. However, the majority of the time they can be prevented so our approach is to handle the current crisis but also put preventive measures in place to prevent future crises.
We look at a crisis two ways: Internal and External – Of course, there can be both and have the ramifications of legal and public perception. When needed we have a legal team that specializes in corporate crises. We work hand in hand with them to assure any message, statement, employment moves, internal or external communications won’t legally hurt the organization in the short term or long term. For over 15 years we’ve worked with attorney Matt Anthony of Anthony | Kennedy PLLC. He and his team understand the importance of public relations and how it can slowly crush an organization over time. “We can handle the legal aspect of the crisis. Many times, that can be the less challenging part as long as it’s done properly. What we have found over the last 30 years, it’s the public perception that will hurt the organization in the long run. The legal can introduce fear, but it’s the negative reputation that can hurt. It takes both the knowledge of a communication expert and a legal team to handle most crises of today. Our goal is to have the organization move past the crisis as quickly as possible without something coming back to legally haunt them six months or a year from now.” – Attorney Matt Anthony
Whether you have a team of attorneys or an on-staff attorney, we can work with them to achieve the best outcome for the organization or person.
What is a crisis?
A business crisis is any issue or disruption causing damaging stakeholder responses that can impact on your organization’s reputation. With the exponential growth of social media, news of a crisis can spread faster than ever before. Consumer perceptions and company reputations are very public and seemingly on platforms you’ve never heard of. Companies must adequately prepare to listen as much as they’re talking. We have systems in place to measure everything that is said about the organization online and offline. Find out more about how we can measure what’s being said about your organization; Positive, Negative or Indifferent.
Close the communication gap between stakeholder expectations and corporate practices. If you align the organization more closely with stakeholder expectations many “unexpected” crises can be taken care of swiftly or prevented all together.
Need Crisis Assessment? How Vulnerable are you? We can look at everything from employment contracts, corporate policies, online exposure and much more. Connect with us to learn more.
