A Comment on Crisis Management

I recently had a very significant incident in my life where in I was the one and only person responsible for communicating updates in the situation to family and friends for short time. It was taxing. I was running in and out of rooms to find cell service and calling the same person several times in a row, because updates were flowing in like the beer flows out of an upside down bottle of Bud Diesel.

Regardless, many times during the whole situation I wanted to just tweet updates for everyone to follow (I didn’t because of the fact that most of the people I was updating would say something along the lines of “What the Heeellllll is Tweeeter”). Nonetheless it got the old brain going and opened my eyes to how easily a company/person can handle tragic situations with social media and put comfort in the mind of those who have something invested.

In my mind it boiled down to three basic forms of communications:

• -Social Media
• -Email
• -WOM

With these three methods of communication almost any situation that you don’t mind making public, which if you are a business should be everything because let’s be serious secrets do make money unless you’re selling them, and that isn’t always legal.

Either way you can start your own rumors with social media. If you can foresee an event, it is important to act before it can land. So if you can inform your network that you have the situation under control by notifying them in a tweet saying

“Be aware, if you use our service you may experience technical difficulties for the in the next few days, we are sorry for the inconvenience. We are working to resolve the situation.”

With proactive communication you can control the situation instead of letting it control you.

The same can be done with email, and the only reason I would recommend using an email blast is it shows an extended amount of care to those people who have a solid enough relationship with you to have shared their email with you. Showing this extra care will only serve to foster that relationship and help generate positive WOM

By WOM I am referring to “word of mouth”, arguably the most important aspect of communication for a business. WOM is so important because you cannot guarantee control over what people are saying about you with anything less the Benjamins, but you can influence what people are saying using the above mentioned tools and a positive customer care.

Creating a situation of proactive engagement and on the ball response times can damn near tie the reins on the wild wind that is “WOM” and help you to dodge the long road to rumor town.