How to Keep a Crisis from Ruining Your Brand’s Reputation
Maybe it’s intuition. Maybe it’s the time of day the phone rings. Whatever it is – you just know what you’re about to hear is not good news. No one calls in the middle of the night to report “all good at the office,” right?
Nope, it’s a good old-fashioned crisis. The crisis could be an accident at the office or on the production line. Maybe it’s a total breakdown in process that affects your customers. Or, it’s a leadership disruption that affects your employees and Wall Street.
Issues management really came of age back in the early 1980s when Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide, killing seven people in the Chicago area. Police believe someone took bottles from local stores, contaminated them and then put them back on store shelves. It was a horrible crime that remains unsolved to this day. However, the way Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol’s parent company, handled this tragedy impacts each of us every single day.
31 million bottles were pulled from shelves while ads warning of tampering aired across the country. Those prompt actions, coupled with the company’s newly-designed, triple sealed packaging, are just some of the reasons Johnson & Johnson rebounded from a horrible crisis to become a trusted company.
We’ve seen our fair share of crises, helping clients through tough times. Here’s what we know: Crises will happen. But, it’s how you respond to them that will define your reputation going forward.
You can’t always prevent crises, but with strategic crisis communications, crises do not have to be detrimental to customer relationships or the bottom line. The proactive communications strategy includes three goals: support the business action plan, be the best source of news to protect brand reputation and control the narrative.
Largemouth works with its clients to develop comprehensive issues management plans, designed to consider all stakeholders and respond quickly and accurately. Don’t have a plan? Give us a call!
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