Crisis Management

A random act of senseless violence stunned the United States April 16: In a video posted to Facebook, a man driving through the Cleveland area sees a pedestrian, stops the car, announces his intention to kill, walks over to the victim and shoots him. The victim, 74-year-old Robert Godwin, was on his way home from an Easter meal with his children.

Businesses must comply with laws and regulations that demand protective measures for the safety of workers and the public; smart businesses go the extra mile to quickly right customer service wrongs before they become embarrassing public issues; and as sensible, informed adults, we take steps to protect ourselves and those around us, such as ensuring our children are vaccinated.

Videos of a man being dragged off of a United flight Sunday night have quickly spread through the web, drawing widespread condemnation and outrage. While United CEO Oscar Munoz publicly apologized the next day and said the company was investigating the incident, he took a decidedly tougher stance in an internal letter to employees. Instead of acknowledging that the company’s “established procedures” might need to be re-examined, Munoz doubled-down, citing policy and effectively passing the buck. Worse yet, the letter went on to shift the blame to the passenger.

While many readers likely will never need to react to the type of crisis described below, the principles discussed can apply to a wide variety of crises. These include having crisis procedures in advance, updating and practicing them regularly and keeping emergency information handy, including third-party contacts, media and influencers. While the author works in a part of the country that is prone to the natural disasters described below and so raises the importance of crisis preparation, surveys show brands large and small lack plans for management of any kind of crisis. They do so at their peril.

There were many examples last month of organizations screwing up and resulting in crises badly handled. We could have piled on PwC for the Oscars, but given that Hollywood obsessed about it for weeks, it was hard to find much more to say. And of course, we would have loved to weigh in on the great leggings-on-United kerfuffle clinging to Twitter as, well, leggings do. But frankly, in these times, all that seemed trivial compared to a couple of serious crises plaguing America’s military.

When a massive, five-alarm fire broke out on a Saturday evening in busy Gilbert, Arizona, a Phoenix suburb home to nearly 250,000 residents, the Gilbert Fire and Rescue Department partnered with Gilbert’s Digital Communications Department to take a teamwork and technology approach to communication and community outreach. Here’s how they did it.

Whatever one’s stance is regarding United’s decision to uphold its dress code policy, one thing is clear: United’s response has been swift and consistent across channels. Responding and listening in a crisis, though, are two very different—and sometime disconnected—things.

Rarely do I mess with cookies, except to eat them. But an experience over the last two weeks with a furniture retailer had me clearing the cookies from my computer. So annoyed was I by… Continued

Our weekly roundup of stories, trends and personnel moves in PR and communications. This week we feature a story timed to International Women’s Day, a reminder about why communicators need to monitor employees’ social media accounts 24/7 and a fond remembrance of Finn Partners’ Anne Glauber.

A video showing Uber CEO Travis Kalanick lashing out at an Uber driver put the company back in the media spotlight. Rival ride-service company Lyft might consider saving some money and suspending all advertising expenditures—Uber’s CEO might as well be on their payroll.