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When a crisis hits, businesses and their customers can be left in the lurch. Learn how to communicate effectively, keep people informed and maintain their trust.
A service outage, data breach or severe weather closure can leave customers wondering whether they can rely on your business. Your employees need answers too, especially when they’re the ones fielding questions from concerned customers. What you say, how quickly you say it and how sincerely you respond can make a big difference in maintaining trust during a crisis.
The best time to plan your crisis communications is before something goes wrong. Having a written plan means your team knows who’s responsible for communicating, what information to share and how to keep everyone updated. We’ll explore six strategies for communicating effectively during a crisis and share common mistakes to avoid.
Whether your business is dealing with a natural disaster, financial setback, personnel issue or technology breakdown, the following six strategies can help you keep people informed and get back on track.
Having a crisis communication plan in place before trouble hits can save valuable time when you’re dealing with an emergency. In fact, Ready.gov recommends developing a crisis communication plan alongside your emergency response, business continuity and IT recovery plans.
While the specifics will depend on your business, every crisis communication plan should address the following:
Once you’ve developed your plan, make sure everyone knows where to find it. Keep your contact information up to date and have a backup copy available in case your company email or website goes down. You should also practice putting your plan into action with a realistic scenario, such as a payment outage or building closure, to see how well your team handles it.
Managing a small business during a crisis is stressful enough. To make things easier, condense your crisis communication plan into bullet points or a simple step-by-step guide that’s easy for your team to share and follow.
Depending on the crisis, you may have to deal with unhappy customers who feel let down by your business. They may even leave bad reviews or share their experiences publicly, potentially damaging your reputation.
While it’s natural to feel defensive, don’t make the mistake of being less than truthful to protect your business’s image. “Don’t lie, obfuscate or shade the truth,” Neal stressed. “If you don’t know the answer, or you’re still investigating to find the answer, say so.”
When dealing with frustrated customers, be understanding and take responsibility for any mistakes your business has made. Don’t try to shift blame or make excuses. Instead, focus on what you can do to make things right, whether you’re speaking with customers on the phone, responding on social media or addressing the situation publicly.
Depending on what went wrong and how customers were affected, you might consider the following steps:
Being upfront with customers and making a genuine effort to resolve their concerns can help repair damaged relationships and rebuild trust in your business.
The sooner you address a crisis, the better chance you have of getting ahead of rumors and maintaining people’s trust. “Get as much of the story out upfront as possible, even if it’s painful,” Neal advised.
Share what you know about the situation, even if some of the details reflect poorly on your business. “Don’t leave out important details for reporters to continue to chase, leading to the proverbial ‘death by a thousand cuts,'” Neal warned. If you’re still investigating what happened, say so. And don’t promise that everything will be back to normal by a certain time unless you’re confident you can deliver.
You don’t have to wait until you have all the answers to make an initial statement. Start with what you know and include the following information:
Make sure you follow through with that next update, even if the situation hasn’t been resolved. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s CERC (Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication) guidelines recommend acknowledging what you don’t know, explaining how you’re working to get answers and giving people practical steps they can take in the meantime.
Providing regular updates can help reduce uncertainty, anxiety and rumors while strengthening your brand’s reputation.
During a crisis, customers may have questions about your business’s operating hours, available services or how to get help. Make it easy for them to find answers by sharing updates through multiple channels, such as email, text messages, social media and your website.
If customers call your business during a crisis, make sure they can get the information they need. You can update your voicemail message to explain what’s happening and where callers can go for more information. If you have a physical location that’s affected, post a sign on the door so customers know what to expect.
If possible, designate one central place, such as a page on your website, where customers can find the latest information. Include the date and time of each update and direct people there from your other communication channels. Have a backup option in case your website goes down, and make sure important information is available in accessible formats and the languages your customers need.
Match your communication channels to the crisis at hand. A weather emergency may call for text alerts and social media updates, while a service outage may require email, phone support and website notices.
Social media can be especially helpful during a crisis because it lets you communicate directly with customers and respond to their concerns. Focus on the platforms where your customers already follow your business, and make sure your latest updates are easy to find. You should also pause any scheduled promotional posts that might seem insensitive given the situation.
Keep an eye on comments and questions so you can address concerns and correct misinformation before it spreads. Make sure anyone responding on your business’s behalf has accurate, up-to-date information to share. If a customer needs help with an account issue or something involving personal information, move the conversation to a private channel.
Your business blog can also be a valuable communication tool during a crisis. It gives you room to explain what’s happening in more detail, answer common questions and share updates as the situation develops.
Once the immediate crisis has passed, take some time to look at how your business handled the situation. What worked well, and what could you have done better? Consider the following questions:
Neal emphasized the importance of learning from the experience and preparing for future challenges. “What have we learned? What are we going to do to fix the problem and make sure it never happens again?” Neal said.
After the crisis, reach out to affected customers and let them know where things stand. Explain what you’ve fixed, whether services are running normally again and what you’re doing to prevent similar problems. If customers are still unhappy with how things were handled, you may need to put some extra effort into managing your business’s reputation. Respond to lingering complaints, answer questions and show customers that you’ve taken their concerns seriously.
Finally, put what you’ve learned into practice. Assign someone to oversee each improvement, set a deadline and update your crisis communication plan so you’re better prepared next time.
Business insurance may help cover certain losses related to a crisis, depending on your policy’s coverage, exclusions and limits. It’s worth reviewing your coverage as part of your crisis preparedness planning.
Even with a solid crisis communication plan, it’s easy to make mistakes when you’re under pressure. Here are some common pitfalls to watch out for.
Mistakes happen. But trying to cover them up or shift the blame can make a bad situation much worse. If your business is responsible for a problem, acknowledge it and explain what you’re doing to make things right. Being upfront with customers, even when the news isn’t good, can help you keep their trust. In fact, business transparency is especially important in situations where customers are looking for answers.
“Being transparent and showing contrition are standard pieces of advice given by crisis counselors,” Neal said.
Even experienced business leaders can struggle to communicate effectively during a crisis, especially when they’re facing difficult questions from customers or the media. That’s why it’s important to prepare your spokespeople ahead of time.
Have your leaders practice answering tough questions, acknowledging mistakes and explaining what the business is doing to address the situation. They should also be comfortable admitting when they don’t have all the answers. And if your team uses AI to help draft crisis communications, make sure someone checks the facts and reviews the wording carefully before anything is published.
Neal recommends media training to help leaders prepare for these situations. “Depending on the nature of the crisis, [media training] can, and should, be done at different levels,” Neal said. “Identify potential spokespeople who will play an official role in responding to the crisis. Have them trained by a PR professional, preferably one with either media experience or campaign or crisis experience.”
When a crisis hits, don’t get so caught up in managing the situation that you overlook what your customers are saying. Pay attention to their questions, complaints and customer feedback so you can identify concerns that need immediate attention. It’s also a good idea to collect survey data regularly, even when things are running smoothly. Understanding what matters most to your customers can help you respond more effectively when problems arise.
It’s understandable to focus on customers and the public during a crisis, but don’t forget about your employees. They need to know what’s happening, especially if they’re fielding questions from concerned customers. Make sure they have accurate information to share and know where to turn when they don’t have an answer.
Your employees also have their own concerns during a crisis, and those may be quite different from what your customers are worried about. If your business has to close for a few days, for example, employees may wonder whether they’ll still get paid or when they can return to work. Don’t leave them guessing. Let them know what to expect, be available to answer questions and ask if there’s anything you can do to make the situation easier. Showing employees that you care about their well-being can help preserve trust and reinforce a strong company culture, even when things aren’t going smoothly.
When several people are handling communications during a crisis, it’s easy for conflicting information to get out. For example, your customer service team might tell callers that a problem will be fixed by noon, while your social media team says it could take another day. To avoid this, make sure everyone has access to the same information and knows when something changes.
Keep a shared record of what you’ve communicated, when updates went out and any corrections you’ve made. If you discover an error, correct it wherever the original information appeared and explain the change so customers aren’t left wondering which version is accurate.
When a crisis drags on, it can be tempting to stop providing updates until you have something new to report. But customers who haven’t heard from you may assume you’re ignoring the problem or aren’t doing anything to fix it. Even if you’re still working on a solution, let people know what’s happening behind the scenes and when they can expect to hear from you again. A quick update explaining that you’re still investigating is better than leaving everyone wondering what’s going on.
Andrew Cuneo contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
