10 Yetis Insight Blog – How Not To Deal With A PR Crisis

As much as we wish that the only stories we got to work on for our clients were of a positive nature, PR crises do crop up from time to time and they need to be treated in a completely different way to your regular PR activities. When there’s a crisis the spotlight is all of a sudden on you (as the PR agency) and your client, and there are steps to take to ensure the situation is handled as efficiently and effectively as possible, in a bid to reduce any negative impact.

Here’s a few tips on what NOT to do when a crisis takes place…

Don’t… panic!

If you panic, your client will panic. If you panic, your client will think that you don’t have a clue what you’re doing and will wonder why they hired you. If anything, it’s your job to keep your client calm and explain to them that everything will be OK. It’s your job to help put together a concise plan of action to avoid worsening the situation.

Don’t… avoid the situation and hope for the best

You can’t turn your back and avoid a crisis in hope that it will just go away by itself – it doesn’t work like that. The phones will ring, the emails will come in and the press will want to talk to your client for quotes and to find out their side of the story. The best thing you can do is face it head on in a professional manner.

Don’t… issue a statement for the sake of it

You may think that you need to issue a statement to the press straight away, but it’s best to wait and work with your client on the perfect way to announce you clients side of things to the public. It’s best to gather all information involved and ensure all parties are completely clued up on what’s happened before a statement is issued. Don’t say anything to journalists, whether over the phone or over email, before issuing a statement because there’s always the risk that they will take their own interpretation of what you say and use them to manipulate the situation. Try to calmly and politely explain that a statement will be issued shortly and keep their contact details for when the statement is ready to be sent out.

Don’t… forget the basics

We as the PR’s, and the spokesperson who is representing the company, need to remember basic media training. Firstly, we need to ensure that everyone involved is aware of the situation, specify that all the facts are gathered before anyone is put in front of the media and stick to the story at hand without going off on a tangent. There’s no positive outcome for guessing or assuming that something has happened, or even exaggerating the facts.

Don’t… let others put words in your mouth

It’s perfectly OK to stand by your guns and disagree with what a journalist is asking you, or putting to you as a statement. Obviously you don’t want to burn bridges, but you need to be careful to not let journalists put words into your mouth, or give a statement that could be misinterpreted. Stick to what you know and if you don’t agree with something that’s being said then find a diplomatic way to get your point across again.

Don’t… look disingenuine

It’s perfectly OK to show emotion in some situations, particularly when apologising. If something has happened and it calls for an apology, you want to look sincere, you don’t want to come across as a robot giving an apology for the sake of giving an apology – remember that people will be looking at you whilst giving your apology and this can affect the way the media turns and the public view you.

Similarly, don’t issue an apology before all of the facts have been gathered, or where the company has been proven to not be at fault. Once it’s been issued it can’t be taken back and it will make the company look guilty of wrongdoing where they may not be at fault.

There are numerous examples of companies that have coped well during a PR crisis, and just as many examples of companies that haven’t coped well. A perfect example of a crisis well controlled was Nick Varney, CEO of Merlin Entertainment, being interviewed on Sky News following The Smiler accident that saw one carriage crash into another, four student’s trapped and two go on to lose a leg each, back in June 2015.