Few companies are truly prepared for crisis scenarios. And when they do think about prevention, the focus often lies solely on maintaining operational processes. Communication with the public – which is just as crucial – is frequently overlooked.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, awareness of potential crises has increased significantly. In certain industries and larger corporations, crises are even becoming part of daily operations. No surprise – the likelihood of being hit by a crisis has never been higher.
According to the latest Crisis Prevention Survey, the most common incidents are technology-related – including cyberattacks and fires. Next are human-related events such as accidents, deaths, or pandemics, followed by media-related crises like scandals or damaging revelations. Environmental, legal, and product-related crises are also becoming more frequent. In short: there are many ways for a crisis to strike.
Companies cannot possibly seal off all potential internal and external entry points for crises. Most crises strike unexpectedly. They often begin with a minor incident – then escalate gradually, in waves, or sometimes all at once.
There is a growing sense that the number of critical events in the world is increasing. This is partly due to the rise of digital and social media, where anyone can publish content from the privacy of their own home.
What’s more, communication on social media is largely unmoderated. As a result, public discourse is increasingly shaped by opinion rather than fact.
That’s why communication teams today must be more vigilant than ever. Their role is to identify sensitive issues in the media at an early stage, assess public sentiment around them, and evaluate the risk of escalation.
This level of insight is only possible through professional media and social media monitoring.
The crisis has arrived. Ideally, the company saw it coming and has a crisis handbook ready to go. This guide should include clear procedures, defined roles and responsibilities, checklists, prepared statements and more. It is an essential tool for responding quickly and confidently. In a crisis, time is critical — it often becomes a race against the clock. The strategic direction is typically set in the early stages.
That’s why pressure on the communications team is highest at the very beginning. On one hand, the situation is often unclear and key facts may be missing. Coordination with informants and decision-makers may still be in its early stages.
On the other hand, the public may need to be informed as quickly as possible. The faster a company acts, the more control it has over how — and whether — it communicates proactively or reactively.
In general, speed takes priority over completeness — but caution is critical. Communicative missteps are hard to correct once they’re in the public eye.
Crises also reveal how often companies misjudge public expectations. What matters in a crisis is not the objective level of risk, but the perceived risk in the eyes of stakeholders.
And companies frequently misread the communication landscape. What counts is not the facts themselves, but the opinion about those facts.
Companies must also understand that corporate and public communication styles are fundamentally different.
While companies communicate rationally — using facts, arguments, evidence, conclusions and proposed solutions — affected individuals respond emotionally, expressing themselves through images, feelings, personal expectations and imagined outcomes.
What makes matters worse is that most companies have no real strategy for addressing people’s emotions. As a result, they often behave as if those emotions simply didn’t exist — which is far from ideal.
If a crisis management team exists, it should be activated immediately once the crisis unfolds. This team is responsible for managing the situation holistically and serving as the company’s voice.
During a crisis, companies must manage both internal and external stakeholders. To do so effectively, they need to identify who their stakeholders are, how to reach them, and what their expectations are. A stakeholder analysis is the foundation of any strong communication strategy.
Another core task of crisis communication is to develop and distribute relevant content quickly and accurately. This includes social media posts, web updates, press releases, internal messages, action plans and behavioural guidelines.
Effective crisis communication ensures consistency and alignment. The principle here is simple: One Voice. This helps organisations maintain control over information, prevent the spread of rumours, and avoid misinformation.
The goal is also to retain interpretive authority in the public arena.
Through active and honest communication, companies create transparency, offer insight into the current situation and meet stakeholder expectations for timely information. This builds trust in the brand, even under pressure.
Crises are high-stress situations that push employees to their psychological and organisational limits. That’s why companies are well advised to optimise their crisis management so they can act and communicate quickly and effectively when a crisis hits.
One proven approach is to conduct crisis audits, led by communication experts with hands-on experience in managing real-life crises. These audits assess risk profiles, review existing plans, processes and communication protocols, evaluate spatial and technical infrastructure, and examine the crisis team’s preparedness.
Equally important is training for worst-case scenarios. While many companies already conduct general crisis drills, communication is still too often neglected. Yet it’s precisely during calm periods of the business year that crisis communication can be trained most effectively.
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