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Pre-Crisis Doctor

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The (oh-so-important) Difference Between an Issue and a #Crisis

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A Guest Post by Melissa Agnes

Melissa Agnes HeadshotUnderstanding the difference between an issue and a crisis is the first step in understanding what is required for managing both. Unfortunately, many organizations and professionals don’t yet know the difference, and therefore suffer unnecessary consequences when presented with an issue, particularly on social media.

So what are the definitions of a crisis and an issue, and how do they differ? Although these definitions are unique to every organization, the following is meant to provide you with a good base for outlining issues vs. crises, as they apply to your company.

The characteristics of an issue

  • Issues don’t present any immediate risk to the organization’s reputation and/or bottom line, for the long-term.
  • However, they can quickly escalate into crises, when not responded to or handled properly.
  • You have 15-60 minutes from the time an issue originates, to respond.
  • Ultimately, when you understand how to respond to an issue and what the expectations of your audiences are, issues present unique opportunities to your organization.

Examples of social media issues include:

  • Negative comments: Although negative comments posted to or about your organization online can sometimes feel overwhelming and like a crisis, they are, for the most part, an issue. Why? Because they don’t pose a long-term threat on your organization’s reputation or bottom line; AND, when handled properly, they present an opportunity to connect you closer to your stakeholders.
  • Rogue tweets: As a rule, rogue tweets are an issue. They’re human error that garner a lot of attention, though don’t present any real long-term damage to the organization’s reputation or bottom line. HOWEVER there are triggers or “red flags” that your monitoring team, frontline and crisis teams need to be aware of. For example: the KitchenAid rogue tweet that defamed the president of the United States during the presidential election of 2012. Since defamation played a role within this rogue tweet scenario, it needed to be immediately escalated and responded to as a potential crisis – which KitchenAid did a brilliant job at.
  • Campaign-gone-wrong situations: From hashtag campaigns that go wrong (think McDonald’s #McDstories fiasco) to marketing campaign fails that garner a lot of negative attention (think of the infamous “Bic For Her” campaign), these can be serious issues that need some sort of immediate response and fixing. However, they aren’t crises since they aren’t situations that threaten the organization’s reputation or bottom line for the long-term.

The characteristics of a crisis

  • Crises present, or have the potential of presenting, negative long-term repercussions on the organization’s reputation and/or bottom line (usually both), for the long-term.
  • Crises need to be responded to with 15 to a big max 60 minutes from the time the crisis originated (not from the time your organization became aware of the crisis).

Examples of crises include:

  • Carnival Cruise’s many recent fails, ending with what was titled as the “poop cruise crisis”. These series of crises all worked together to completely damage Carnival Cruise’s reputation and their bottom line. It’s months later and the brand is still trying to convince past and prospective customers to trust them again. Not to mention that these crises lead to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) developing and passing a Cruise Passenger Bill of Rights that puts in-place new and mandatory standards for cruise ships in the United States. Now this, is what we call a crisis!
  • The Paula Deen Crisis is another excellent example of a real crisis. Although this crisis didn’t need to play out as severely as it did, this is a perfect example of a crisis not being properly handled and the very severe long-term repercussions that come as a result. $10 million in loss of annual income definitely qualifies as a crisis!
  • Susan G. Komen is yet another example of a crisis that hurt an organization’s reputation and bottom line so bad that, nearly 2 years later, they’re still struggling to pick up the pieces.

The funny thing (well, not for the above mentioned brands, but for us who can learn from their mistakes), is that none of the above crises needed to play out as severely as they did. Let’s take a look:

  • The Carnival Cruise crises should have never happened. Had the company invested in the quality care of their ships, AND had they had a crisis management plan that met today’s realities, they would not be in the situation that they currently find themselves in.
  • Had Paula Deen not sobbed, pleaded, begged for forgiveness and attempted to make herself the victim of her own actions – and had she instead taken responsibility and made the issue bigger than herself, she probably would not have been such a laughing-stock and thus dropped by many of her partners and sponsors.
  • Had Susan G. Komen done a proper risk assessment before making the announcement to cut Planned Parenthood from their fundings, and/or had they made a decision and then grew a backbone and stuck with that decision (whether to keep the funding or not) they also wouldn’t currently be in the situation that they find themselves in today.

However, it’s easy to look back and point out what went wrong and what should have been done instead. What’s not easy (or rather is not done often enough) is to understand these definitions, trigger points, escalation processes and how to appropriately respond to the issues and crises that threaten your organization’s reputation and bottom line before they have the opportunity to materialize. Prevention and preparation is key to managing any type of negative situation. The first step towards prevention and preparation is understanding what an issue is and means to your organization, as well as what a crisis is and means to your organization.

And now you know!

Melissa Agnes specializes in crisis response, prevention, planning and training for the digital age. Working with national organizations and global enterprises, Melissa offers a variety of specialized services that help today’s biggest and brightest brands prepare for, prevent and overcome any type of crisis situation. Connect with Melissa on Twitter and Linkedin.

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Special Announcement: Chief Bill Boyd Visits #PRStudChat to Discuss Crisis Communications & Social Media

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#PRStudChat summer camp is over, and now it’s back to school, and back to business.  With our PR and social media programs in full swing, we thought a discussion on crisis communications and social media would be helpful to the community, especially as we head toward the busy 2012 holiday season.

 

We all know the importance of constant reputation monitoring and preparing for crisis, especially in an age of public conversations. You have to be ready for any type of crisis to strike, regardless of the size or type of organization. Our September #PRStudChat special guest is no stranger to crisis. As a matter of fact, in his career he’s experienced the many different types of crisis situations. Our guest, Chief Bill Boyd, is a fire chief and crisis communicator for the Bellingham Fire Department in Washington. On September 12th at 8:30 pm ET / 5:30 pm PT, Chief Bill will share his views on crisis communications and social media.  We’re thrilled to have him join us for a full hour of community interaction and learning.

For those of you who don’t know Chief Bill, you can access more information about him here and please follow him on Twitter. We’re honored to have Chief Bill with us and we look forward to gaining his insight on social media, PR and crisis.  If you have any questions, in advance of the session, for Chief Bill, feel free to DM us or post your questions in our LinkedIn Discussion Group.

Please help us welcome Chief Bill by giving him a warm and friendly Twitter shout out, and by letting him know you’ll be joining the session too.  We look forward to “seeing” you on September 12th!

A Little More About PRStudChat:

It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more

PR Practice 5 - The Pre-Crisis Doctor

PR Practice #5: Pre-Crisis Doctor Chart of Responsibilities

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One of my favorite new practices, which is outlined in my book, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional, is PR Practice #5: The Pre-Crisis Doctor. To continue with my edited or cut chart series, today’s post discusses the Pre-Crisis Doctor chart of responsibilities, and the many new roles PR professionals undertake, as they move from PR crisis managers to Pre-Crisis Doctors.  As I stated in my book, Pre-Crisis Doctors are the PR professionals who, “… proactively monitor social media conversations and track the sentiment of customers and other stakeholders when conversations are under control.”  Pre-Crisis Doctors do not wait until the crisis escalates to neutralize the situation, and they use technology wisely to stay abreast of any rising negative sentiment.

You can see from the wheel visual below that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn, as the Pre-Crisis Doctor, in your own company.  The Pre-Crisis Doctor uses a different strategic process to prevent a negative situation from gaining momentum. Of course, the ideal scenario would be to stop the negative from ever starting, however, due to the nature of social media this is highly unlikely.

 

 © PR 2.0 Strategies

Therefore, as a Pre-Crisis Doctor, it’s your responsibility to catch the negative sentiment, at a point when you’re able to react swiftly. You should have several resources in place, which includes everything from your company’s social media crisis organizational chart and the shell of the message to your measurement tools and key influencers to help keep the public updated with the most recent information.

Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:

Create an Org Chart of Key Social Contacts

PR professionals are very familiar with the org chart, which provides the communications and reporting structure in a company.  However, building a social media crisis organizational (org) chart gives the framework for who is involved at every different level of crisis escalation. The most common social media crisis org charts start with a bottom layer of social media activity and who is involved (no pending crisis) and works all the way to the highest level of crisis (full blown crisis) at which point your CEO, Chief Reputation Officer, Board of Directors or Cabinet may be directly involved in the situation at hand.

Develop the Shell of the Message

When it comes to social media communications, it’s difficult to have every type of message planned because each crisis situation varies and will warrant a different approach, depending on the issue and the social media channel.  However, your company should know the shell of the message based on company policies, positions and ethics, which can be crafted to meet the requirements and culture of the communications channel. It’s always best to anticipate what could happen through each channel, and then go on the offense with your proactive messages.

Tech Test Tools for Crisis

You will need to identify the best tools, resources and platforms to help you track rapid communication during a crisis. Your tools will also allow you to determine whether or not the crisis communications strategy is working to move the negative sentiment to neutral or positive.  It’s imperative to research, demo, trial and test your technology long before a crisis begins.  When you’re in the height of crisis, that’s not the time to be deciding the best resources to put in place. In addition, the tools you select should be easy for your team to use (tested beforehand), and also allow them to create the charts and reports appropriate for executives who are watching the situation closely.

Build a Comment Response Chart

PR professionals are learning to listen closely to the dialogue of customers, media, bloggers, etc., whether it’s positive praise, product questions, service issues, organizational concerns or outright anger.  As Pre-Crisis Doctors, they analyze how to move through different scenarios, as these conversations are documented and placed into “conversations buckets.” Building these conversation buckets becomes the infrastructure of your Comment Response Chart, or a decision tree. The Comment Response Chart helps professionals to determine how to handle various situations through a series of yes/no questions, which is a monitor/evaluate/respond strategy.

Integrate Department Crisis Plans

Because social media moves across the company, PR pros have to integrate the social media crisis plan to work in harmony with other departments, during a crisis situation.  For example, customer service is an area that’s speaking directly to the customer, and there is a hierarchy of who in customer service will speak with a stakeholder, depending on the level of crisis escalation.  Today’s social media crisis plans must take into consideration how different departments in the company, and employees in all positions, must be aware of crisis measures and directing communication to the appropriate contacts.

Identify Key Media / Bloggers

In the past, crisis managers built their plans realizing the importance of identifying and prioritizing media contacts that they would alert at the onset of a crisis. These journalists would also help to keep the public informed with updated information. The focus used to be solely on the media. However, today we include bloggers as powerful influencers during a crisis situation.  One key reason to build strong relationships is when crisis strikes and negative sentiment runs rampant, you have an outlet to tell your company’s side of the story.

Review New Crisis Measurement

One of your crisis strategies will be to properly identify your approach to measurement and what benchmarks will be used to determine if your evaluation and response system is working.  Measuring aggregated conversations focusing on negative sentiment before, during and after the crisis helps to determine the crisis plan effectiveness.  We have the ability to find the negative sentiment, and understand who and what’s being said in the context of a discussion. There is no more 24-hour news cycle, but rather a minute-to-minute news cycle through social media and your citizen journalists.

Being a Pre-Crisis Doctor is a proactive approach to social media crisis, one that prepares the company for various types of negative conversations. The Pre-Crisis Doctor pinpoints the people, channels, messages and appropriate technology to use before the crisis occurs.

 

 

You’re a #PR Crisis Manager, But Are You a Pre-Crisis Doctor?

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PR professionals are familiar with the crisis drill, because we’re called upon when crisis strikes and we’re prepared with our crisis plans in place.  Today, executives realize that crisis takes precedence, as their companies are in the public’s critical eye, their brands are the topic of constant conversations and communication travels more quickly than ever before through social media channels.

The difference between the PR crisis manager and the pre-crisis doctor is the ability to use the very channel that causes the crisis, to prevent the situation from either starting or spiraling out of control.  It’s one thing to prepare how you would manage the situation but it’s an entirely different strategic process to try to prevent it from happening.  Today we’re able to scan, monitor and respond more proactively to all different types of media, including the negative conversations in social media communities.  There should be no waiting or hesitation.  If two hours of crisis goes by, then those two hours have the potential to lead to serious reputation issues and damage.

It’s better to prevent and/or manage the situation to lessen severity, with a public response that immediately addresses the issue at hand.  Companies are learning to listen more closely to the dialog of their customers and other constituents, whether it is positive praise, product questions, service issues, related organizational concerns or outright anger.  As the pre-crisis doctor analyzes how the organization moves through different situations, these conversations are documented and separated into “conversation buckets.”  These are the very buckets that house information or intelligence on best practices.  In some cases the intelligence leads to a favorable outcome and in other cases to some serious lessons learned.

How do you become a pre-crisis doctor?  Part of the process is learning to monitor more closely and on a constant basis. Social media doesn’t stop at the close of the normal business day and it doesn’t take off on holidays.  People are talking into the late hours of the night and early hours in the morning. Years ago, the crisis manager would have plan in place that covered what would happen if negative communication appeared in traditional media.  Then, at the onset of web communications, businesses found the benefits of 24/7 interactions and a broader reach, but this also meant that information about their issues could spread faster through online media, when a negative story broke.

Now, the media doesn’t have to break the story because consumers can easily share their negative views and opinions in their communities, followed by the media reinforcing the escalating issues.  When ongoing monitoring is in place, the pre-crisis doctor has a better chance of pinpointing the mounting issue, evaluating it more quickly, focusing on the change in sentiment and carefully responding to slow down the rapid pace of sharing before the issue(s) gets completely out of hand.

Going beyond the crisis manager, most pre-crisis doctors will prepare several additional resources integrated in the crisis operational plan.  These items include:

–   Prepare an organizational chart of key contacts involved in the social media responses, as the crisis escalates to different levels.  For example, by charting levels of escalation and the appropriate parties tied to those levels (usually from different departments) there is no question at any time or hesitation when it comes to the evaluation process and who responds to the crisis, through the appropriate social channels.

–   Create a thorough comment response chart that gathers types of actions and responses and walks the company through the situation with a Yes / No flow chart to determine specific actions that need to be taken.

–   Identify of different areas within the company that may need to work together (integration of departmental crisis plans).  These areas may include marketing, PR, Web, Brand, IT, Legal, and Customer Service. Remember, the communications department is no longer the sole gatekeeper of information when it comes to social media and the crisis situation.

–   Determine the shell of messaging from the small conversation mishap on Facebook or Twitter to the full-blown “tornado” crisis in a YouTube video. Many of these types of situations may already be properly documented and placed into your “Conversation Buckets.”  You should also have an internal sharing system in place in order for all members of the crisis team to easily access the documented information during the crisis situation.

–  Build relationships with key media and bloggers before an issue escalates. Also, prioritize those influencers who you will alert first at the onset of a crisis.  Crisis managers are skilled at pinpointing the priority media and today the pre-crisis doctor includes bloggers among those powerful influencers during a crisis situation.

–   Select and evaluate the social media tools, resources and platforms that are necessary to highlight rapid communications during a crisis.  Demo and test all of your technology so that you’re able to easily and quickly use it during a crisis situation.  This type of homework must be done beforehand.

–   Identify what type of measurement will be used to determine if the evaluation and response system is working during a crisis situation.  For example, measuring aggregated conversation sentiment before, during and after the crisis helps to determine the crisis plan’s effectiveness.

–   Train the crisis team as well as your general employee population, so they understand what can and can’t be said on any channel during a crisis situation.

The pre-crisis doctor is ready and waiting for the negative situation to occur.  Because information is documented, monitoring is in place and employees know what to do in a crisis situation, there’s more of an opportunity for the pre-crisis doctor and the rest of the crisis team to possibly prevent the situation or slow down the rate of escalation, before the company experiences reputation issues or damage.