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MANILA – October 24, 2013 – Gone are the days when a crisis would unfold over a couple of days, or even a week. Today’s crises are measured in tweets per second, said Brian West, Global Chair of Crisis Management at FleishmanHillard.
This means companies must learn to keep up with technology, in order to be able to cope with an issue the moment it erupts, thus preventing it from escalating into a crisis.
The three new rules of crisis management, according to West, are speed, social media at the core, and empowered frontline troops. "Social media has changed everything," said West, who explained that companies must trawl through various social media platforms at all times.
In the same way that bad publicity can spread almost instantly, a company needs to respond just as quickly. "You can’t not know what’s happening online. There has to be constant monitoring," he said during
a roundtable discussion on October 24.
When it comes to dealing with a crisis in the digital age, centralized command control is no longer adequate. "The severity of a crisis is measured by how well it is managed. Companies need to have a strategy even before the crisis," West said, noting that it is better to plan for the worst than to be caught unprepared.
West also said that 90 percent of all crises can be identified in advance, which means companies can actually prepare templates for a variety of situations. On the positive side, West said that "a crisis is an opportunity for the company to show what they believe in."
< src="/global//UserFiles/don anderson. " width="200" height="241" hspace="5" align="right" alt="" />Don Anderson, SVP at FleishmanHillard, emphasized the need for training and education within companies, from the CEOs all the way down to the staff level. "You can build success stories out of crises, but it depends on your tactics," said Anderson, who shared a number of case studies, including Domino’s social media crisis response, which has become a benchmark of how to address such crises.
When a YouTube video of two misbehaving employees went viral, the company responded quickly. Beyond an authentic apology from the CEO, the company launched a campaign that engaged the community to help them improve, and achieved a huge increase in share price. This, as Anderson shared, was one example of how brands can transform a bad story into a success story.
FleishmanHillard’s crisis management approach includes crisis strategy sessions, developing a playbook, third-party education, communications training, as well as simulations and crisis drills. They have also developed FH2020, A 360-degree solution that delivers real time monitoring, analytical dashboards, and rapid response alerts that can be received on any mobile device. It also includes core social crisis response protocols and processes.
There is no one size fits all solution in crisis management, they said. However, brands should have response protocols in place. "Don’t wait for it to happen. Start now," Anderson said.
