Crisis Communication

Crisis Communication Strategy

In a crisis, every minute counts. Our crisis communication experts will guide you on the best strategy and approach that clearly communicates what’s happened — and provides confidence that your company is now taking the right actions.

We’ll deliver a crisis communication strategy that outlines key messages, and communications tactics to reach your stakeholders, which might include employees, customers, shareholders, community partners, and others.

We’ll help your company’s senior leaders reach a consensus on the strategy, approach, and tactics that lawyers, HR executives, operations managers, and other key decision-makers can all agree on.

Internal Communications

Employees are often the most overlooked audience in crisis communications, however, they are seen as spokespeople by others in the community. Meet your employees’ needs and expectations around frequent and personalized communication during a crisis. Our crisis communication team will train your leaders and managers to communicate effectively with employees about the situation.

Crisis communications experts can help the company walk a line between too much and not enough information for employees. Leaders should show employees they are taking the crisis seriously and that they’re clued into what’s happening inside (and outside) the company. We’ll help you communicate with employees in a way that inspires confidence that the company will be okay.

External communications

During a crisis, it’s especially important to have a plan tailored to your needs and your organization. Each of your stakeholders or key audiences have concerns that need to be addressed.

We work closely with you to identify and communicate with external stakeholders such as clients/customers, elected officials, government regulators, and vendors. For a nonprofit, additional audiences include donors, sponsors, and volunteers.

News media in a crisis situation

It’s critical that you consistently communicate with reporters in a crisis. We will show you how to address questions from reporters and practice putting complicated information into meaningful soundbites.

Our crisis communications experts coach your senior leaders on techniques to use body language and tone to relay confidence and contrition — without appearing defensive.

Shareholder communications

We’ll help you identify when and how to communicate with shareholders in the event of a crisis that may impact earnings. In some cases, a crisis might prompt a public company to file an 8K and distribute a news release. We can help with that, too.

Our crisis communications team will work hand-in-hand with your lawyers and investor relations professionals to prepare filings and Q&As for shareholder questions.

Crisis communication plan

Smart companies have a crisis communications plan before a crisis occurs. A crisis communications plan considers the risks of a company’s daily business and creates a starting point for how a company should respond when a crisis occurs.

Our team will create a crisis communication plan that helps you move faster in a crisis situation. It clearly outlines the initial steps and base messaging that can be tailored for key audiences. Plus, the exercise of creating the plan has helped build consensus with key leaders, who have been trained on how to respond.