Crisis of Trust: Five Ways to Recover Relationships with Key Stakeholders
Bad Press
Nobody wants to hear these much-dreaded words, yet virtually every type of company has been tested to see if they can weather the firestorm after something goes terribly wrong. A poorly managed crisis can have dire consequences. Customers may decide to leave the company's product on the shelves, Wall Street might lose interest in the stock, and employee morale may sag. Today's short news cycle and diffused media environment only complicate matters.
"Effective crisis management can minimize the damage and in some cases allow an organization to emerge stronger than before the crisis" (Crisis Management and Communications,12.07, IPR).
As a PR professional, how then do you douse the fire and regain key stakeholder trust? On their own, precautions and pre-crisis strategy planning will only take you so far. As obvious as they may seem, universal best practices can be your strongest allies.
Five ways to maintain stakeholder trust
- Be timely: Although every crisis is unique, it is still necessary to have a plan in place for when things go awry. It's important to respond quickly, even if just to say you are working on it. Otherwise, you are forced into a reactive mode, something that may prolong the crisis and reinforce mistrust.
- Be honest: In other words: don't lie — either actively or through omission. It's too risky. Keeping your stakeholders in the know illustrates that you are trustworthy. Even if you don't have all the information, a partial response is better than none. Take responsibility where warranted and push your legal counsel when necessary. Once again, it's a lot easier to reduce negative press when you're proactive, rather than reactive.
- Understand the media and its mission: Why is the media interested in your story? Remember journalists are committed to reporting and they, like you, must inform stakeholders of the issues. Bloggers may not be as formally trained, but they also influence a stakeholder's opinion about a company. In a crisis, prioritize media outreach based on which stakeholder groups are most affected.
- Choose the right spokesperson: Although it is important to speak with one voice, it may not be appropriate to have only one spokesperson represent your company. Depending on the stage of the crisis, it may be necessary to have experts, legal counsel, or some other adviser speak for your company. Choose people who can effectively communicate your company's position. The more forthright, clear, and consistent your messages, the more accurately the issues will be portrayed in the media.
- Point to the future: Try highlighting some of the key things that your company has done or is in the process of doing for the overall good. "This can cushion the immediate impact of a crisis, and accelerate the return to normalcy, provided the company responds to the crisis in a way that is consistent with the positive reputation that has created stakeholder bonds in the first place"
(The Harris Report, 12.06).
Facebook: The case for timeliness and transparency
Facebook launched a social advertising feature that would allow a user's friends to see what purchases they had made and receive an advertising message. However, at launch, Facebook described the program as a service to "allow users to share information from other websites for distribution to their friends," by combining "social actions" with the advertising message of an affiliated company. The actual service was less benign. In truth, a user's network of contacts would receive an advertising message each time the user made a purchase or other transaction from a participating advertiser. Facebook set the default so the user's entire friend network would get the onslaught of advertising messages, making it cumbersome for users to "opt-out."
Soon users began protesting. They formed Facebook groups such as, Facebook: Stop Invading My Privacy! MoveOn also joined the fray, petitioning for a conversion to a system that required users to give their permission proactively before the information could be shared. Facebook claimed MoveOn misrepresented how social ads work, pointing out that information was "shared with a small section of a user's trusted network of friends, not publicly on the Web or with all Facebook users," and that users were given multiple options to choose not to share the information.
Yielding to the backlash, Facebook eventually changed the default to an "opt-in" setting and later announced the creation of a privacy control allowing users to turn it off completely. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerman apologized for the mistakes made in building the feature and for "taking too long to decide on the right solution." (Case based on BurrellesLuce analysis, as appearing in PRWeek, 12.19.07).
How BurrellesLuce can help
Let BurrellesLuce be your source for media outreach, monitoring, and measurement. We cover more U.S. media than anyone else – monitoring over 50 million blogs and more than 50,000 web forums and online media, in addition to all of the traditional media. Media monitoring is where BurrellesLuce started, but today it is just one of the ways that we help you maximize the value of your media relations results.
- First, target your messages to those most likely to write about your efforts using the industry’s most comprehensive online media directory. Take advantage of free, unlimited e-mail distribution of all your news releases.
- Next, monitor your coverage from every form of media. We deliver exactly the news you want to see, complete with all photos and graphics.
- Then, gain insight through our automated and customized media measurement services.
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