7 common mistakes in handling a communication crisis

A communications crisis is always a threat to a company's reputation and brand health. Yet knowing how to resolve the situation properly and appropriately remains a challenge for many businesses. In the article below, let's explore 7 basic mistakes in handling a communications crisis that every business should know.

How does a communications crisis affect a business?

Brand reputation is one of a company's most valuable assets. Protecting that reputation ensures the business holds a secure place in consumers' hearts. However, a brand crisis can easily destroy the value a company has worked to build and protect over many years.
In 2018, two Black customers asked to use the restroom at a Starbucks store in the United States. Store employees refused and even called the police. The incident spread across social media at breakneck speed. The brand subsequently faced a consumer boycott over what was widely seen as discriminatory behavior.
In addition, a communications crisis can cause significant financial damage to a business. A declining reputation can erode the trust of loyal followers and cause revenue to fall rapidly. Moreover, companies must also spend considerable sums to manage the crisis and repair the damage it causes.

7 basic mistakes in handling a communications crisis

Denying responsibility

Shirking responsibility when a difficult situation arises is a familiar approach for a segment of the business community. This is one of the most basic mistakes companies need to avoid.
From one perspective, this is a kind of "defense mechanism" businesses turn to when facing a crisis, a way of protecting brand reputation. From the perspective of consumers and the wider public, however, such behavior only makes the crisis grow larger and turns the consumer backlash into something far more aggressive.
Take the case of Philippine food company URC Việt Nam, which was accused of selling a range of beverage products containing high levels of lead. Instead of accepting responsibility, the company simply published an article in a local news outlet emphasizing that all of its products were safe apart from two defective batches. URC Việt Nam's strategy of silence was a passive solution, one designed to lead the public to understand and receive the information in the way the company wanted.

Responding too slowly

When any crisis breaks, time is the decisive factor. Responding slowly or delaying action toward the public, the press, and consumers only makes the problem worse, and can turn a situation that was still salvageable into something far more damaging. This is especially true in today's digital age, when just one or two unhappy consumer posts or a single reporter's tweet can be enough to ignite a crisis.
Toyota's case is one example. In 2010, the company saw a significant rise in complaints about the sudden acceleration of its vehicle engines. Among the 6,200 complaints filed, 69 involved casualties in Toyota vehicles.
The company subsequently moved to recall the vehicles that failed to meet standards. However, management appeared to underestimate the problem and deliberately responded slowly to the issues unfolding. It was precisely Toyota's slow response that eroded consumer trust, forcing the company to deal with countless lawsuits in the years that followed.
Leaving consumers and stakeholders waiting too long for an answer or a resolution can significantly diminish trust and brand image, and can also cost the business financially. Therefore, at the first signs of a crisis, businesses need to move quickly to draw up a plan and rapid-response options for every scenario that could arise, in order to mitigate the damage the crisis inflicts on both brand reputation and business operations.

Lack of sincerity

A sincere, transparent attitude is the guiding principle for crisis management that every business needs to understand. With the right attitude, consumers are far more likely to view a company's efforts to remedy a crisis in a positive light.
As such, when facing a crisis, businesses need to clearly acknowledge the events they have caused. Moreover, sincerity in words must be translated into concrete actions with real practical meaning. Businesses should also avoid an evasive attitude or a token apology — such actions only make the situation worse.

Align your message across every communication front

When a crisis breaks, many businesses tend to appear across numerous media channels to issue corrections, offer explanations, or make efforts to limit the damage the crisis has caused. However, this often has no effect — and can even backfire, turning consumer perceptions of the brand more negative still.
Rather than spending significant time and effort explaining themselves across many different media channels, businesses should be selective and use their own official channels, where information is easier to control and manage. In addition, businesses need to ensure the message conveyed is unified and consistent across channels, avoiding a situation where multiple conflicting messages create further misunderstanding among audiences.
To communicate information consistently, businesses need a dedicated team responsible for handling the crisis, ensuring the quality of the information delivered is the same across all media channels.

Messaging that is insufficient and unclear

To resolve the problems a crisis creates, preparing a strategic plan as well as the content to be communicated to the press and to consumers is an essential activity — yet one businesses frequently overlook.
Preparing this content helps keep a business ready to respond to whatever arises. Moreover, it prevents the business from panicking or, under the pressure of the moment, putting out substandard "firefighting" information and content that can sometimes make the situation worse.
Therefore, businesses need to prepare statements as well as responses to press questions during a crisis. To do this well, businesses need to plan training and equip their staff — along with the company's official spokesperson — with the necessary skills. Being fully prepared helps businesses resolve issues effectively and quickly.

Using jargon and technical terms

When a crisis occurs, issuing a press release or an apology to the public, consumers and customers is one thing, but the more important task is to communicate in language that everyone can easily understand, ensuring that the message the business wants to convey is not misinterpreted. Using phrases that are unclear to consumers leaves audiences with the feeling that something is being covered up. Businesses should therefore use language that everyone can easily understand, which increases the credibility and trustworthiness of their statements.

Resolving matters quickly with money

This is an approach some businesses choose in the hope of settling the issue quickly without creating additional risk. However, it has never been a useful method for resolving a crisis.
During the sensitive stages of a crisis, audiences will see a business's use of money as a deliberate attempt to cover up and conceal wrongdoing and violations of ethical standards. Moreover, bad actors can take advantage of this to push the business's situation in an even more negative direction.
In addition, money is only an immediate fix and does not deliver a definitive resolution to the crisis for the business. Businesses therefore need to implement sound strategies and actions advised by trusted parties in order to save time and effort.

Suggestions for handling a media crisis effectively

Build a crisis management plan in advance

To limit media crises and to have an appropriate crisis response strategy, businesses need to build a media crisis management plan in advance. Establishing a management plan helps businesses recognize and assess potential risks that may arise, so they can prevent and address them in time.
Moreover, businesses can combine this with Social Listening tools to listen to and monitor information on social media. This allows businesses to promptly trace and handle negative information spreading across social media.

Establish a rapid response team when a crisis occurs

When crisis events occur, businesses should establish a dedicated team to resolve the problems caused by the media crisis. The rapid response team's responsibilities include basic tasks such as:

• Finding and tracing the sources of information that caused the media crisis event
• Proposing a crisis response strategy for each type of crisis and each event that triggers a crisis
• Contacting agencies and stakeholders to resolve the issue (the press, government agencies, media outlets, etc.)

Establishing a rapid response team for crisis situations gives businesses a dedicated unit to resolve issues professionally and thoroughly, avoiding a state of panic when addressing the problem.

Using the communications management services of professional companies

To make the most of market data, businesses need to choose management solution providers with a solid technology foundation and outstanding technical capabilities. Kompa is a data technology company that applies AI and machine learning on a Big data platform to deliver data analytics solutions, equipping clients with valuable “insights” to optimize their business operations across many areas such as Marketing, Finance, Operations and more.
Many of Kompa's services can help businesses manage communication crises effectively, including:

• Brand reputation management on social media: reviewing, analyzing and consolidating negative discussions about the brand on social media so that businesses can intervene and resolve issues in time. In addition, a tiered classification system for negative information helps businesses accurately assess how urgent an issue is and choose the appropriate approach.
• Social Listening: listening to and tracking information on social media, helping businesses evaluate and measure the performance of their brand's communication activities, so they can position the brand's value in customers' minds.
• Other data analytics services. Businesses can view the list of Kompa solutions

>>> Read more: How does corporate governance help prevent crises?

Conclusion

Communication crises can have many negative impacts on a business. Mitigating and preventing the effects of a communication crisis is always a more effective strategy than fixing or dealing with the consequences after the fact. Businesses can use the communication management services of reputable, highly experienced providers such as Kompa today to put an effective management approach in place early.