If by chance a brand crisis occurs at your company, are you going to have a reputation management plan in place to make sure you know what to do and how to handle that challenge in order to protect your brand. I sure hope the answer would be a resounding yes we absolutely will have a plan to handle whatever challenge comes your way.
Defining Brand Crisis:
When you have a brand crisis in business you have to have a brand crisis management plan in advance of what needs to happen, by whom and when these things need to happen. In these types of situations time is of the essence, so make sure you and your company are prepared to protect the brand that you have worked so hard to build.
Brand Crisis Management Fails to Learn From:
Ignoring the Problem:
One of the biggest fails we see pretty consistently is to ignore the problem when a brand crisis occurs. You can’t afford to put your head in the sand and pretend there isn’t a problem, you have to know how you are going to effectively handle the challenge that comes your way.
Reactive:
Another big mistake we see when a crisis happens is to always be reactive versus tackling the problem proactively. OK, a crisis has occurred, but now it’s time to take action and get in front of the challenge and manage it to the best of your ability to protect your brand and company.
Stoking the fire:
The last thing you want to do when a problem occurs is to pour gas on the fire and make it worse or blow up into a raging fire. Instead follow the plan you developed prior to a problem happening and put out the fire in a proactive fashion as soon as possible.
Crisis Response: Key Steps:
Have a plan:
Meet as a team and discuss the different potential problems that could occur, like an accident on site or a bad customer experience. Determine how you are going to address these particular challenges and discuss the best way to deal with them. Map out a plan and what your action plan would be and how is going to be responsible to handle the situation.
Huddle ASAP:
When that planned event happens, meet as a team to assess the situation and discuss next steps, responsibilities and who is going to handle the particulars.
Execute your Plan:
As a team follow your plan and implement it as your brand and company depends on it, because it does. Execute your reputation management plan to a tee and protect your company and brand’s reputation.
Communicate compassion(or apologies) if appropriate:
One thing the best brands do is to communicate compassion, and own your mistakes if possible, sometimes it’s not possible due to legal considerations. At least you can communicate caring and compassion and your concern for your customers and employees.
Keep you team up to speed:
As you are dealing with the challenge, keep your employees informed as to the progress you are making. Keep your team appraised as to where you are at, what things have been done and what is still to be done and how they can help with the situation.
Monitor progress:
You outlined how you are going to measure and track success as to your brand reputation plan, keep your team informed as to the progress you are making, your goals and objectives and what can still be done to move the needle on improving your brand’s reputation.
Brand Shift/Rebrand:
If the situation went badly, you may want to consider adjusting your brand, or rebranding. If this occurs, you may want to consider utilizing a rebranding agency to the expertise that this require to get it just right to come of this challenge in the best light possible.
Key Strategies for Managing Reputation During a Crisis:
Be prepared:
In reputation management, the key to success is to have a pre-paired plan in advance of any negative event that may occur and how your company and brand is going to proactively manage your brand management plan.
Be timely and responsive:
Since you have a plan in place, you can and need to make sure you are timely and responsive to the challenge before you and your brand reputation. Make sure you jump on your response and hit it hard to move beyond this as quickly as possible.
Be honest and Real:
There is one thing that can ruin your brand reputation very fast, is not being real and honest. Don’t be fake or slippery, your customers and the marketplace as a whole can tell which brands they trust and believe in, so make sure you are true, real and believable.
Be compassionate and caring:
In addition to being real and honest another vital component is to be compassionate and caring to the situation and those involved. Make sure your company, brand and employees have empathy and communicate your authentic care and concern.
Leveraging Digital Channels to Manage Reputation:
The importance of Social Media:
Having a brand reputation plan that includes how you are going to harness social media as a way to provide information, care, compassion as well as how you are addressing the situation
Public Relations:
Another key component of your brand reputation management plan will be how you utilize public relations to communicate with your customers, employees, the marketplace and the media. Have a communications strategy, be clear, concise and to the point and have a representative prepared that could handle questions if need be.
Provide Information:
You will also need to provide information as to the situation and how you are handling the situation. You may put together a communication plan and a path forward. That could even be in the form of a pitch deck and what your action plan is, that is where you may utilize a pitch deck expert for assistance on these efforts.
The importance of your website and blog:
Your website and blog page are great places to put information about how you are proactively handling the crisis at hand. Make sure you keep your stakeholders informed and update to speed up the process and how you are addressing the situation at hand.
Brand Crisis Case Study:
We all remember Bud Light and the snafu that happened to that brand. Here is a great bad example of a brand crisis that went really, really badly, and because of their arrogance, they badly mangled their response. It’s a great example of how not to handle things, and if you do it wrong, the horrific effect on your brand’s reputation and your brand value could suffer greatly.
Brand Crisis Example:
We see all the time when a customer has a bad experience and when a company and brand has clearly developed a brand reputation management plan and they are highly committed and effective at diffusing the situation, winning the customer back through their dedicated customer service and commitment to their customers can be a reality.
Conclusion:
Make sure you take proactive measures to design and develop your brand’s reputation management plan and be ready if and when a crisis occurs. You may want to consider hiring a branding agency for small business to help develop your reputation management, lean on a firm with experience, who’s handled situations like these before and has the know-how to get the job done.
