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Recently, the topic of choosing an external crisis team was broached by someone from a global consumer products company that is preparing its RFP. They are not in a crisis, but they are doing what they can to avoid one.
I told them that easily three-quarters of our clients come to us after a crisis hits. The initial conversation usually goes like this: we start with introductions that leads to a brief explanation of the situation at hand and then we get the question, “So, The Wall Street Journal called, what should we say?”
At moments like these, a few things become crystal clear:
• Time is the most undervalued asset;
• It’s too late to find new friends;
• Trusted advisers become a critical resource; and
• You discover whether you have lived by your corporate values or if they were just words.
Getting back to the question, your crisis counselor should be able to act quickly, but not take a cookie cutter approach. In the hundreds of cases I have been involved in, not once did the crisis communications manual come off the shelf. That is not to negate the value of an operational crisis plan, which may include such useful communications elements as a call tree, but you get the point.
There was an era when crisis communications was a niche service and the go-to firms were few and often hard to identify. Today, almost every PR firm lists crisis communications among its offerings. However, crisis communications is not every firm’s core strength.
So what do you look for in a trusted adviser? First and foremost, you want a relationship that feels right. I often use the analogy that we’re the firefighters. You want someone who has done it before and often, who will bring calm to the situation and who can help lead you through the firestorm.
When you talk to your potential crisis counselors, I recommend finding out as much as you can about these four key areas:
1. What is their depth of experience?
• Is crisis communications a dedicated service or one among many offerings?
• Does the team that will work on your crisis have a track record of success?
• Have their crisis engagements been global or national in scope?
2. Do they specialize in communications management, not publicity?
• Most communications pros are trained to create media attention. During a crisis you want a team that understands what creates media attention, but the last thing you want is to create new or unwanted negative stories.
• Look for a team that has a track record for working with media in a transparent, non-combative way.
3. Are they accustomed to sitting at the senior leadership table and working as part of a team?
• Crisis management is a team exercise.
• Your crisis communications counselors should have the confidence, as well as the attendant sensitivities, to work with your senior leadership, legal counsel and existing consultants.
• Conversely, you should have the confidence that your crisis counselors will work well with your team. This entails trust, confidentiality and the ability to collaborate with and to provide advice to management, operational, legal, marketing, advertising and communications teams. For example, you don’t want a crisis team that puts out press releases to highlight how it helped your company through a terrible time.
4. Do they bring both sage advice and the ability to use the proper communications tools to engage, monitor and assess?
• Trusted counselors should be able to provide your team with a strategy and clear guidance of what tools to use and when and how to use them.
• Is their crisis response plan off-the-shelf or custom built?
• What experience does the team have with social media engagement?
• How would they involve third party advocates?
• Can they explain how opinion research may assist your efforts?
• Can they tell a story that resonates with your audiences?
If you have time on your side, one way to test-drive a firm is to hire them for an advanced media preparation session or a crisis audit. The session should produce some guidance that will help you take the next steps to avoid and prepare for crises. PRN
CONTACT:
Roddy Young is a senior VP at TMG Strategies, a crisis management consultancy of Publicis Groupe/MSLGROUP. He can be reached at [email protected].