While reading the article How to Communicate in A Crisis, I realized how important it is to plan for different problems and different scenarios before they happen, in order to be prepared when they do. When a problem happens in a huge company, like the telecommunication company I work for, they need to be prepared to handle it, especially when they have a large customer base and that problem can affect those customers. As Diana Pisciotta said in her article, a crisis communications plan should consider the answers to these questions; What could go wrong? Who’s in Charge? What’s the strategy? Who are the spokespeople?.
I saw such a failure in a crisis communication happen a couple of years ago in my company. My company was one of the most successful companies in the region for years, and they were living under the illusion that “nothing bad will ever happen to (or around) their business or they assume that whatever the crisis is, it will be so unexpected that planning won't do much good.”
Unfortunately something bad did happen. There was a glitch in the system and customers were being billed for services they did not request, or were being over charged for the services they did. When the complaints were brought to the attention of management, they decided to wait it out, mainly because they did not have a plan on how to handle the situation. The problem reached all media outlets and took the company a very long time to figure out what to do. The main reason was they didn’t know who would be the spokesman and represent the company in this situation and if that person should go out in public and give an apology.
Because they were not able to communication well in that crisis, and were not able to realize how critical it was to address the problem as soon as it happened, the company lost a large number of their customers and a huge percentage of their annual profit. They lost their customers trust and loyalty and until this day they are trying to gain it back.
Abdullah, I found this article to be very insightful and incredibly valuable for organizations. Although companies tend to be confident, they need to take Murphy's Law into account: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." With that said, while companies may trust that they have the best product, system and resources, there is always room for failure. By establishing a crisis plan, companies can attempt to save themselves during times of trouble in addition to maintaining the trust of their consumers/customers.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Chinese saying something like this: "When things are going well, think of danger." Your post identifies a very important element of proactive organizational communication. I would even suggest managers think about what may go wrong and how they are going to help their team if and when it happens.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your article Abdullah. I agree it is imperative for organizations to know how to communicate in a crisis situation. While reading your post I immediately thought of the movie "Apollo 13." The movie is a great example of how important strong communication skills are, as well as answering the questions you mentioned; "What could go wrong? Who’s in charge? What’s the strategy? Who are the spokespeople?" In order for organisations to know how to respond to change they should have established and well-known policies. Much has been learned from Johnson&Johnson's response to the 1982 Tylenol crisis.
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