Responding To A PR Crisis With Style

If you’ve ever responded to a PR crisis, you know just how vital your response can be. Countless brands that have responded to public relations crises either shot to fame or were epic failures. A severe PR disaster can have a massive impact on your brand if not tackled immediately.

However, you’re likely not a multimillion-dollar corporation with a dedicated public relations department or a boutique branding firm on speed dial. If you’re a small business owner, your public relations mess-ups might not make the front page of Forbes or Fortune, but they are still watershed moments in your brand’s history. And you don’t need to be on Wall Street to prepare for a public relations disaster.

While it might be time-consuming and cumbersome to prepare for a PR disaster, it is well worth the effort. 

Failing to prepare can have enormous consequences for your brand. Take the example of Bridgestone and its Firestone tire controversy.

Firestone tires, made by Bridgestone, would separate from their threads at high speed, causing multiple accidents and some deaths in the late ’90s. Some personal injury attorneys knew about the tires, and eventually, Bridgestone’s internal research team and individual dealerships became aware of their tires’ severe risk. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration then began its investigation and confirmed that Firestone tires were, in fact, the cause of many accidents.

Firestone eventually recalled millions of tires while caught in a media firestorm, but the damage was already done. Bridgestone lost nearly 50% of its market value, faced a congressional investigation and several lawsuits, and closed one manufacturing plant permanently.

Despite Bridgestone’s manufacturing and technical problems with their tires, other, clumsier public relations decisions worsened the company’s crisis. The main lesson from the Bridgestone case, one that small business owners need to take to heart, is that any public relations problem handled poorly will worsen.

Bridgestone had a product problem to rectify, but its failure to handle public relations impacted every aspect of the brand’s business — and not in a good way.

The branding and marketing experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design compiled some essentials for your crisis response plan. Bad press will happen, so be prepared to tackle it.

Read on to learn how you (yes, you!) can handle a PR crisis.

Public Relations Tip 1: Gather Your Facts

The first rule of public relations is to research extensively. When a PR crisis happens, rushing and making a statement can be tempting, but we encourage you to ensure you have all of your facts in a row. You don’t want to make a statement without having all the necessary information. You could inadvertently make your PR crisis bigger than it needs to be if you speak about something that turned out untrue. Rumors will fly at the beginning of a PR crisis. Wait until you have verified all relevant info before speaking.

You will need to balance this with a quick response. If you take too long to research, a false media narrative or public perception could form, which is hard to shake. We recommend making an initial statement that apologizes and assures the public you’re working on researching and rectifying the issue.

This statement usually promotes your brand well to the public, doesn’t commit to any specific course of action while you research, and buys time to learn more. This sort of communique doesn’t need to be very long. An earnest paragraph should be sufficient.

Public Relations Tip 2: Appoint a Team

Appointing a team is most effective if done prior. Your PR response team is like your IT specialist; ideally, they should foresee problems, not react to them. Having a team ready for any public relations nightmare is always the best step.

Now, if you’re a small business owner, you probably don’t have a PR department — and that’s ok. However, you and your team can develop your plan for responding to a PR crisis. Ask yourself and your team the questions below before a crisis ever happens. Then once the real thing arrives, you can dust off your crisis response plan and spring to action!

• Who will comment on any public relations controversies?
• Where or to whom do you redirect questions from the media or the public?
• What’s the first thing we do when a PR crisis arrives?
• Will we relay communication from another internal communicator to the public?

Public Relations Tip 3: Hone Your Message

When a public relations crisis breaks, it can be natural to want to defend yourself. Your employees and other teams will probably want that to be your company’s first response. However, that can be a mistake. Inconsistent messaging and unclear delivery responsibilities often muddy the waters and worsen things.

For instance, if your front desk employees tell your customers one thing about the situation, your customers might be taken off guard when your message is different. To cut this off, ensure that your team understands your message and who will be responsible for delivering it.

Public Relations Tip 4: Prepare for Questions

You cannot possibly be prepared for every possible question, but you should be ready for the general crisis questions. Questions around blame, immediate impact, your plan to fix the situation, and the overall message are much more common than questions about the long-term consequences, small details, and technicalities.

Public Relations Tip 5: Own it

One of Bridgestone’s worst mistakes in its public relations crisis was to prevaricate over taking responsibility. At various points in the Firestone controversy, Bridgestone implied that customer tire inflation methods, Ford Motor Company, and the Ford Explorer were the cause of the accidents, not their defective tires.

Had they taken immediate action in 1996 when their tires became suspicious, Bridgestone might have gotten away with a small recall and some amended production processes. Instead, they delayed and attempted to put the blame on someone else. Their attempt to evade their responsibility came back to bite them.

When the truth came out, it resulted in massive lawsuits, bad publicity, and poor relationships with partners for Bridgestone. They caused far more damage themselves than the crisis did in the first place. If you’re ever in a situation like this, take responsibility early and often.

Even simply validating the public’s concerns can have a considerable impact.

Public Relations Tip 6: Audit Your Customer-Facing Mediums

You will have questions trickle in about your public relations crisis, both from the public, the press, and internal employees. We discussed how you should brief client-facing staff on responding to questions, but don’t forget about the other touchpoints between your brand and customers.

Social media DMs, email responses, and contact forms on your website are all areas where questions and concerns from the public will appear. Be sure your team knows how to handle inquiries through these mediums.

Other, more public interactions should also be kept in mind. Social media comments and reviews on Google Maps are two great examples of public communication with your customer base. When faced with negative comments and reviews, reply graciously and validate the customer’s concern, even if they are being unfair. Remember, it’s not just for them. Other users are watching as well.

Taking responsibility and apologizing to your customers on these mediums help build your reputation with the public. (And it’s just great advice for dealing with unhappy customers!)

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