Protect Your Brand

Establishing or maintaining communications in a crisis ensures that your employees, suppliers, customers, and the public are getting the facts directly from you. A lack of communication can leave rumors to emerge instead of facts, leaving you with no control over your message. This can have costly implications for your reputation and bottom line. Instead, your communications can help you protect against the loss of consumer and investor confidence, damage to reputation, loss of competitiveness, reduced market share, and the violation of laws and regulations.

Crisis communications take two forms:

• External
• Internal

This section focuses on external communications, while internal communications are discussed under Protect People.

For external communications, you need a company spokesperson who may or may not be the CEO, depending on how good they are on camera or in an interview. It must be made clear that no one other than the spokesperson is to speak to the media, as only the spokesperson will have the most current information available. All requests to employees must be forwarded to the spokesperson, so they can control your message and answer questions accurately. The spokesperson and your company’s public relations (PR) team will be working behind the scenes to publicize accurate information about how the disaster has impacted your business internally and externally. Knowing how to work with the media effectively will help your company control its message.
Your PR team needs to use all means necessary to reach out to your customers, suppliers, vendors, stockholders, partners, stakeholders, and the general public regarding your status and what you are doing about it. Set a schedule for regular updates, and then keep the information coming as promised. Now is not a time to be inconsistent. Do what you say you will. Use all channels of communication available, timing updates appropriate to each.

• Website (daily, hourly, and possibly more frequently, if tied to social media)
• Social media sites (at least hourly, but more frequently if needed; frequency of updates may slow as attention slows, but should not stop entirely)
• Press releases (as often as you feel relevant, tie back to website)
• Press conferences (depending on scope of disaster, daily or weekly, but must be relevant to attract media attendance; a one-time press event may suffice since these require a lot of coordination)
• Newspapers/TV/radio (tied to press releases and current events; helps if you build a relationship with reporters in advance so they know you and your company). Respond quickly to media requests as they will move on if they don’t hear from you. If you are unprepared for a spontaneous interview, don’t answer the question asked – answer the question you wish you had been asked. Remember, if you don’t respond, they might start to speculate about what is happening to your business. Visit the Media page for more tips on media interactions.

Preparations for much of this can be made in advance of the disaster by developing templates for press releases and generic public statements that can be revised to fit a particular scenario.

Social Media

Special opportunities for sharing information can be created spontaneously using tools such as Facebook pages, which can be generated on the go and used to reach targeted groups or the general public. Many recent disasters have shown Facebook to be a useful tool that can be used while websites are down, and even as an additional communications channel once other channels have reopened.

Social media outlets, tools, and sites should be created and used in advance, as they also have daily benefits for your business. It helps to select the tools that best fit your organization before an emergency so those who will keep your information updated can become familiar with their use without the stress and pressure of a disaster.

When it comes to the media, building relationships in advance will help your cause when a disaster strikes, as media outlets will come to you for information. The media can be a great asset in helping to spread your message to the public and your customers. Keep them informed.

Good communications can:

• Enhance trust and faith in the organization
• Reassure stakeholders
• Facilitate efficient, swift recovery
• Protect your reputation

Choose to work with key reporters who have a good reputation for getting information right. They are always looking for a good “story,” something that will be of interest to their viewers, listeners, or readers. Consider what will be compelling to their audience. When there’s no disaster, they will also look for visuals that will draw people in (and that they can keep on file if needed in the future). Make the effort to reach out to these reporters in response to a story they’ve done to provide business insights or perspective, demonstrating that you can be a good resource.

When disaster strikes, the reporters will remember who has helped them in the past. You can also reach out to them, but you’ll likely be too busy. It will help if they come to you.

Keep in mind that you may not always be contacted by the same reporter, but it will be helpful having worked with various media organizations. Be conscientious of their deadlines, which are typically tight. Your responsiveness will be much appreciated, and getting your story out will be their way of saying thank you.

“No comment.”

Giving no comment is a dangerous approach, as a reporter may simply guess or try to imply why your company is not talking. It can be a costly statement, and thus one that should be avoided.

Partnerships are a tremendous asset to a business and the community where you operate. These partnerships come in different shapes and sizes, and serve different purposes, but all will be a benefit to your business when it comes to a disaster. Here are three types of partnerships to consider in your overall business continuity program development.

• Business-to-business
• Government
• Non-profit and community

Many businesses don’t consider external partnerships when working on their disaster planning. The fact is that when a significant disaster happens, businesses will be on their own for at least three days as local governments respond to their highest priority organizations (such as hospitals and schools). It is important for businesses to be self-sufficient.

Partnering with Other Businesses

Businesses will have to work with one another to survive. If your business is located in an office park, strip mall, or high-rise, look to the other businesses around you to see how you might learn from and help one another during a disaster. Share your disaster plans with one another to see where natural opportunities for collaboration may exist. There may not be many now, but by building relationships, you will have someone to work with when the need arises. For example, by working together now you may be able to leverage changes in building safety upgrades with the building owner or property manager.

A partnering business may open their doors to co-locate a part of your operations in their business while you are recovering. The possibilities are endless and many partners have assisted businesses during their recovery from tragic events.

Partnering with Governments

Businesses often shy away from engaging with government, based on their primary experience of government as a regulator. However, many local and state emergency management (EM) offices are interested in partnering with the private sector on planning and coordination regarding disasters. EM officials are the conveners and facilitators for government in a disaster, so they, like your Planning Team, are interested in enhancing their current plans and understanding. They offer insights on what to expect from responding agencies – very important info when planning your own response – and hold training classes that are open to the public. Government will be interested in what kind of information or support you might need so that perspective can be included as a consideration in their planning and response efforts. In the end, there can be a great information exchange between the two organizations.

Partnering with Non-Profits and Community Organizations

Businesses can benefit from partnerships with non-profits and other community organizations. Groups such as the Red Cross can provide training for employees. Many have extensive disaster experience that can add some value to your disaster plan. These volunteer organizations can also detail how the community will respond and explain the typical services that will be made available by them and others to assist you. Knowing what services these types of groups may offer your employees can help you identify potential gaps in your preparedness measures. By building a relationship with these organizations, your business will gain much-needed planning insights, as well as collaborators when disaster strikes.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the way businesses take responsibility for their decisions and activities, and the impacts those have on society, the environment, and their own prosperity. It makes good business sense for a business to engage in CSR as it fosters community benefits that also can also benefit the company. Giving back to the community helps cultivate camaraderie and support for employees where they live.

Organizations such as the US Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center (BCLC) work to connect businesses with innovative CSR ideas. For disasters, BCLC offers the National Disaster Help Desk for Business (Help Desk), which assists businesses, non-profits, governments, and the community with recovery solutions through their call-in number 1-888-MY-BIZ-HELP. Visit the Tools & Resources page for more information.

One of the ways any business can help a community in times of disaster is through donations. Because of the logistical challenges created by product donations, the best way to help is through cash donations. Of course, you need to make sure that you are donating your money to a reputable organization. View these important tips on how to donate responsibly.

To further help their communities, some companies have launched donation match programs, which can double the money given to charities.
Another way to contribute to the community is to encourage your employees to volunteer with community non-profits. These offer great experiences for employees while giving constituencies the help they need.