1. Because a Crisis Will Happen
None of us are immune to crises… they don’t even have to be of our own making or come from the top down.
One employee mishandling a situation or one social media professional forgetting which account they’re tweeting on can be enough to bring your brand into crisis mode.
But it can be even bigger than that:A product malfunction.
A particularly bad review that goes viral.
Security breaches.
Tone-deaf advertising.
Messaging misfires and miscommunications.
National tragedy.
A global public health event.
These are all the types of events that are likely outside your organization’s control and not necessarily issues that your leadership could have foreseen (a whole different issue in and of itself).
Knowing what we know now, having been blind-sided by a global pandemic no one saw coming, there is no excuse for shirking your organization’s responsibility to respond in a timely manner that instills confidence and respect.
When these events happen, having a communications plan is critical to come out on top and not be the punchline in the discourse that follows.
2. Because Your Employees Are Watching
When your organization is stuck in the middle of a crisis event, whether it is at the epicenter or on the fringes with everyone else, your employees are waiting to see how you respond.For all the rah-rah that many brands try to achieve in their company culture, nothing screams “We’re actually not a family” like the deafening radio silence of an organization in trouble, particularly when it comes to internal communications.
In the days that followed quarantine-driven shutdowns nationwide, many employees felt their organization’s silence deeply as they waited to find out whether or not they still had jobs or paychecks coming their way.
We have seen organizations who promised that layoffs would be a last resort or that none would be coming, only to have them happen later, breeding contempt and distrust among their team members.3. Because Customers Need Information
If you think that keeping your employees in the dark is bad, wait until you are staring at a steady, public stream of Twitter mentions from customers (and potential customers) waiting for your response.
When there’s an interruption in the supply chain, your customers don’t care who’s at fault.
They want to know when they can count on receiving your product that they have purchased (or rely on) for a reason.
When there’s a security breach and their data has been exposed, they aren’t as interested in how it happened as they are in what you are doing to make things riged.4. Because Communication Breeds Trust & Respect
It’s pretty commonly understood that, as humans, we prefer knowing what’s happening than being left to our own devices to guess or imagine the worst – especially in times of fear, uncertainty, or panic.5. Because Shutting It All Down or Blocking Every Negative Voice Isn’t an Option
In 2017, ink!
