How to Best Handle Crisis Communication

As a public relations professionals that specialize as a Chicago crisis communication agency, we understand that there are many different definition on how to handle crisis.  Regardless, our public relations services make sure that we can mitigate damage to your company’s reputation.  Typically, our Chicago PR Firm is trying to gain attention for your brand, however, not all stories are positive stories or have happy endings, and we are experts that can help you figure out how to communicate in those situations. 

We more or less are just trying to calm the storm that was created and manage any negative media.  A great example of how public relations firms manage crisis is similar to how Shift Communications describes putting out a fire.

Shift Communications writes, “In a crisis communications situation, something has gone wrong and your brand is on fire. There’s the something you did or something you’re responsible for – the fuel. There’s the tide of public opinion – the heat, the energy. There’s your speed of reaction to it – the catalyst. As with real fires, if you deny the fire any one of these sources, you break the chain reaction that causes fire and it burns itself out.”  Managing these situations takes a lot of strategy and experience.  If you make one wrong more or make one wrong statement, your reputation can collapse like dominoes. 

Our PR strategies and PR tactics include three key ideas to battle the storm.  Those three factors are ownership, information, and haste. 

Ownership: This is an important factor our Chicago crisis communications agency makes sure our clients are accountable for.  We know that there are times when a problem arises that we do not want to own up to, but it’s not right to just run away from the storm.  The more you take ownership, the more people will start to listen.  The more people try to place blame elsewhere, the more commotion stirs up.

Information:  A good Chicago PR firm knows how important it is that the public and the client remains as informed as possible of any discussion, rumors, etc.  If you let one false statement get by, a rumor can spread like wildfire.  If we inform the public as much as possible of the situation, our fact and the who, what, where, when, why, the better we can mediate or pacify the issue.

Haste: In the franchise PR industry, it is vital that all actions are made as quickly and accurately as possible.  The quicker we react, the less time there is for the public to speculate and potentially create rumors. 

Our Chicago public relations franchise recommends that all PR firms use the three key words above in any crisis situation their client is in the middle of.  We know that if you take ownership of the situation, inform the public of the truth and facts, and do the first two things quickly, there is a much better chance of a positive reaction from the public.  The longer the public waits to hear information, the more the wheels turn in their head to make them wonder what is really going on.