A crisis is any situation that could result in a business losing the public’s trust, their support and the legitimacy of the business. In today’s world, particularly in the ‘always open’ social media realm, news travels faster than ever, and this includes potentially damaging news. This is the reason why crises communications is an essential function of current public relations. The right crisis management strategy ensures that any business can keep a high level of trust and a positive relationship between themselves and the public.

Our experts have the skills, the knowledge and the tools to effectively help your business with your crises communications needs. When your business has an appropriate crisis management strategy in place, you can effectively manage and control news that could potentially harm your business’ reputation.

We have specialist crisis communications experts and can help you keep your business choose the best communication channels to engage your audience and efficiently analyse and respond to the feedback from your audience through any crisis.

In today’s always-on 24/7 social media era, potentially damaging news travels faster than ever before. That’s why crisis communications is one of the most important functions of contemporary public relations. An effective crisis management strategy ensures that businesses, brands and those in the public eye are able to maintain a high level of trust and a positive relationship between themselves and the public.

As Warren Buffett famously said, “it can take 20 years to build a reputation and only five minutes to ruin it.”

What constitutes a crisis?
A crisis can be defined as any situation that may result in the loss of public trust, support and legitimacy for businesses, brands and public institutions. Without an appropriate crisis management plan in place, negative news about any organisation or individual in the public eye spreads like wildfire.

Successful crisis communications strategies are those that look to put in place a set of best practices and processes to effectively manage and contain any news that could potentially lead to a drop in levels of public trust, a financial loss or significant damage to the reputation of an organisation or individual.

Poorly handled, a crisis can lead to financial and reputation loss. Crisis management is a set of practices, actions and tools aimed at reducing the harmful effects a crisis can inflict on an organization, its stakeholders, or the industry.

Crisis communications protects and reduces the impact of the various threats to individuals or to organisations and their stakeholders. Mistakes, serious errors of judgement or natural disasters cannot be foreseen. This means that every public-facing organisation or individual is vulnerable to crises.

The fundamental idea that underpins the best crisis communications strategies is simple: preparation is key. You cannot foresee when a crisis is going to occur. But you can formulate an effective crisis communications plan to deal with it when it does.

In terms of timing, the thing to remember is this: the worst possible time to develop a crisis communications plan is after the fact. Reacting to an emergency or dealing with a potentially tough reputation-damaging issue requires a calm, confident, level-headed and well-coordinated response.