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What Really Happens Inside a PR Crisis War Room - Coggle Diagram
What Really Happens Inside a PR Crisis War Room
crises type
Self-inflicted
Bad behavior, neglect, bad hires or fires, or bad customer experience.
Unanticipated data error
This may be financial, or a technical data blunder that has some consequence, but is not based on malfeasance.
Public misinformation
Incorrect information originating from outside the company
Outside forces
Some problems come from outside the company.
To do
Do internal fact-finding, stat.
Employees might start seeing Twitter light up, or they might start getting pinged by reporters.
communications team gets wind of the issue, quickly find the internal people in the know and dig through lots of company chats and threads to understand exactly what’s happened.
Convene the right people quickly.
get the right in-house expertise to talk through the situation, hammer out a plan, and draft an initial statement.
some will work to hammer out a plan
others will reach out to trusted third parties (regulators, attorneys, influencers, and other affected companies)
Some will monitor reaction and coverage, which also helps to shape the company’s response.
may also contact a few trusted reporters to give them more color on what happened.
Maybe get some extra hands.
it’s imperative to bring experts in-house to fend off the kind of damage that affects the future of the business.
To do
Say something publicly.
this is probably the time to send out a quick “We are aware of the situation and are looking into it” statement.
also tell the public later what did happen and how you’re resolving it.
Talk to the troops.
work on a plan to inform employees as all this is going on.
legal matter
a lot has to remain secret
TLC and check-ins post-crisis beyond immediate public attention.
transparent than usual.
Rapid response with reporters.
Often, the PR team knows nothing about the problem beforehand. When the requests for comment come in, the team has to beg for time to assess the facts or tease out the gist of what the reporter has in order to figure out how to respond.