Winner: Verizon
Campaign: Sept. 11 Crisis Communications Plan
Budget: There was no budget beyond the public affairs team's typical internal expenses.
Peter Thonis, EVP of external communications for Verizon, calls the telecom giant's communications staff "crisis-hardened." But nothing could have prepared these seasoned pros
for the events of Sept. 11.
Beyond the fact that hundreds of Verizon employees were unaccounted for and many employees had friends and relatives in the World Trade Center, Verizon itself experienced
devastating loss of infrastructure in the attacks. More than 300,000 phone lines were out. Ten cellular phone towers were destroyed, and more than 14,000 businesses (including the
New York Stock Exchange) and 20,000 residential customers in New York were without service.
Within minutes after the second plane hit, Verizon's public affairs team mobilized. The team was up and running by 11:30 a.m.
Public affairs execs have always been in the senior management loop at Verizon, so the company consulted with its PR team on how to handle operational decisions, including
prioritizing restoration of service; providing free service on public pay phones; and sending senior managers door-to-door in affected areas to offer customers free cellular
phones.
The team focused on three issues:
- Concern for victims, employees, customers.
- The network continued to operate.
- The huge challenge posed in restoring service. "The president called and told our CEO we had to have the Stock Exchange up by Monday. Meanwhile, we've lost 4.5 million
circuits," Thonis says.
Members of the communications team (about 25-strong at headquarters) wrote and distributed email messages to employees and set up an internal Web portal.
The team spoke openly and often with the media (1,000 times in September alone) to control the messages and assure America that service would be back up and running. The PR
staff got a disaster media kit up on Verizon's Web site and held live media briefings in the days following the attacks. The organized, efficient response won accolades in
Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and on CNN, CBS and CNBC, as well as from government officials. Eighty-three percent of employees were still
confident in the company's strength following the events. And Thonis reports that the near 24/7 response gave his team a sense of real purpose. "I can't say it was fun, but it was
very gratifying."
(Contact: Thonis, [email protected])