The importance of communication in a crisis

Having to deal with a serious crisis is hopefully a rare occurrence for an enterprise, however they do happen and businesses have to be prepared. The way crises are dealt with and the ability to make quick decisions is imperative to the future success of the business concerned. 

A critical element of any crisis management plan is getting all key decision-makers in the same place as quickly as possible to develop a suitable strategy for response. 

However, given the increasingly global nature of enterprises this can be very difficult to do in an adequate timeframe. 

Since most crises are newsworthy events, media from the region, nation and even world, will quickly expect statements and explanations about the cause and effects of the situation. 

The need for a quick response is further amplified by the advent of the internet which enables breaking news to appear online almost immediately - now more than ever the business in question has very little time to respond.

To take an example of a crisis situation, health officials may find a link between several cases of E.coli and a juice company with the result being one fatality and a further 80 people falling ill.

This is likely to cause panic, law suits and a drastic decline in sales. Relevant teams (including external parties such as lawyers) have to be formed and mobilised to quickly make a decision on what steps to take. 

This can be fairly straight forward if all key decision makers are in the same building but it gets more difficult if they are spread across the country or, just as likely, across the world. 

Flying your CEO from New York to London or waiting an hour for your lawyers to drive to your office for a crisis meeting is time no business can afford. 

If your business doesn’t provide any information, or doesn’t provide it quick enough, the public - such as reporters, employees and members of the community - will turn to other, often less credible sources of information. 

The well-known maxim that ‘in the absence of information, misinformation becomes news’ can become all too true and cause irreparable damage to your business and its reputation.