Interesting article in Advertising Age by Abbey Klaassen about weathering a Twitterstorm. She uses the recent Amazon cataloging crisis as yet another example of poor response to a crisis. Much closer to home, Gordon Brown has finally decided to use the “S” word to make amends for yet another internal e-mail debacle. Despite the fact he’s said “sorry” (he may even have meant it), it all seems to little too late and he’s now accused of spin.
Whenever we undertake crisis management training, there are two messages we try to get across to people at the very start.
1. There is nothing wrong and everything right with saying “sorry”. It doesn’t mean you’re liable, it doesn’t even mean you did it, it just means that you are capable of showing some humanity about a bad situation.
2. Perception is reality. It doesn’t matter that right is on your side (or not), what matters is what your publics believe is right and how you address their perceptions. But as Klaassen points out, you need to be sure that the crisis commentary is coming from your publics and not a group of people who have little or no impact upon your business, its status and reputation.
In a crisis, kneejerk strategic reactions are the worst possible course of action. However, making a statement quickly is a positive first step. You don’t actually have to say anything other than “we are very concerned about the situation and are taking action to investigate it”. Coming over all ‘corporate’, self-righteous and defensive is not the language to use unless it’s in line with every other piece of your external communication (in which case maybe we can give you some advice about your general communication)!
Early communication makes you visible, gives you some breathing space and offers you a chance to direct people to more factual information as soon as you are able to release it. Hiding isn’t a solution – if you don’t talk, other people will do the talking for you.
One other piece of advice that is emerging from the development of social media and ‘groundswell’, is to listen carefully to the ‘buzz’ and see just how balanced it is. As Klaassen points out, it is important to know who is actually doing the talking and just how influencial they actually are as core customers/clients/audience base or brand champions. It’s human nature to immediately focus on the the negative comments, but if you take a step back you might find that the feedback is self-balancing and that you have allies prepared to jump to your defence without you having to prompt them.
But most of all, in a true crisis be yourself and be sincere – if you get it wrong, saying “sorry” might be the hardest word but it’s a good one to start with.
Tags: communication, communications, Crisis Management, Social Media