What the **** is crisis communications and does your business need it?

Storm

A crisis can strike any business at any time.

Whether it’s a PR mishap, a data breach, or an operational failure, how you
handle the situation can make or break your reputation and have a dramatic
financial impact.

That’s where crisis communications come into play.

It involves preparing for and responding to unexpected events that could harm your organisation’s reputation. It’s about delivering clear, consistent and timely messages to everyone you need to talk to from employees to customers to the public.

But do you really need it?
● Is your business really likely to face a crisis?
● Will it even get media/social attention?

I say, yes. Every business needs to prepare for a crisis.

Here’s how it will help:
● Protect your reputation: a well-managed crisis can defend and even enhance your brand’s reputation.
● Maintain trust: keeping people informed shows transparency and builds trust.
● Minimise impact: quick, strategic responses can mitigate the negative effects of a crisis.
● Ensure continuity: effective communication helps maintain business operations and morale during turbulent times.

In uncertain times, having a solid crisis communications plan isn’t just an option – it’s a necessity.

Is your business prepared to handle the unexpected?

Counting the cost of a reputational hit

Ups and downs of reputational management

Building a company’s reputation is a long-term investment which takes years of consistent effort, trust-building, and strategic communication. But the destruction of reputation happens in a matter of moments. We thought we’d take a closer look at how investment in crisis communications and risk preparation reduces the impact of a reputational hit.

Building a reputation: The value of long-term effort

1. Consistency and Trust:
– Years of reliable performance, transparency, and delivering on promises

2. Quality and Excellence:
– Continuous provision of high-quality products or services and maintaining high standards

3. Positive Relationships:
– Nurturing relationships with customers, employees, and the wider community

4. Strategic Communication:
– Regular, strategic engagement and storytelling to highlight successes and values

5. Resilience and Adaptability:
– Demonstrating strength in handling challenges and adapting to changes

According to research from Pentland Analytics (pdf), companies recover from share-price losses faster when senior management communicates with stakeholders swiftly and launches an active program of social responsibility that directly addresses the damage associated with the crisis.

20% improvement in market value 30% Loss in market value

Don’t waste years of hard work. Prioritise proactive reputation management and effective crisis communication to protect your brand integrity.

To help you we’ve created a tool to discover how safe your company’s reputation really is. Think of it as the first step of a Reputation Audit.

To take a look, please visit our Reputational Audit page.

Good Ship Mangold ahoy!

The Good Ship Mangold

The good ship Mangold Consultancy continues on a strong course, thanks to the team covering my watch during a recent stay ashore!


Here are some treasures discovered on my return…

Problem: Keeping the spokesperson’s muscle flexed.

Solution: Meet our clients with a fitness mindset to media training – regular sessions to grow the muscles needed by providing current, timely and relevant insight and examples of press performance done well.

Problem: Organisations are facing increasing scrutiny from unannounced visitors demanding a big ask of frontline teams who meet them.

Solution: Provide practical ways to keep pace with changing methods of scrutiny, which reinforce reputation management and protect staff wellbeing.

PS. Time out is an excellent way to take a bird’s-eye view of your surroundings and future course. Many thanks to Jess Mangold, Estelle Kinzett, Justin Clark, Amanda Coleman and Emma Davies for your “all hands on deck” approach!

Thank you to DALL-E Open Ai for this image.

Avoiding on camera confrontation. Advice for reception & security teams

How do you avoid on camera confrontation when cameras turn up unannounced?

Following a sharp rise in YouTubers and TikTokers turning up unannounced at client offices and sites – often trying to provoke reactions from unwitting staff, we’re increasingly asked for our advice on how to support teams on the ground.

Watch Abby explain our top tips for avoiding on camera confrontation.

How to avoid on camera confrontation

Crisis Communications Playbook

Crisis Communications Playbook

What do you do when you discover one of your employees has behaved inappropriately?
How do you respond when people challenge your business practices on social media?
What do you do when you get a customer complaint?
The list could go on.

Using experience and nous to assess and respond to live issues, based on the specific set of circumstances is absolutely the way to go in an emerging crisis.

Recently however, clients have asked us to compile a “playbook” of responses for the most frequent and reputationally damaging issues, after we’ve completed a reputational risk audit of their competitors and the wider sector.

A playbook is more than collating your “lines to take” or communications responses. Done well, this live document should become part of the Communications Team’s armoury with which you can effectively respond to issues as they develop. The playbook provides important insight such as :

  • stakeholders, reactions and patterns in their responses
  • social media activity including trends, keywords used and priority channels
  • topics which cause the most activity
  • duration of interest
  • key journalists
  • as well as the existing communications to help build a response

All too often the post-crisis sands of time slip away and soon the next issue is upon you. Taking time to stop and reflect on how you responded and what you can learn should be part of the ‘playbook’.

By taking a quick and thorough sweep of actions post-issue you will assess; did we get our message out there or are we just repeating the same old tired platitudes which don’t cut it with our customers / stakeholders.

Questions to ask post-event are:

  • did our last response achieve our objective
  • are our response times working
  • are the comms consistent with commitments made in the past
  • is now the time to review our corporate key messages to make them better reflect our current reality and after effects of an issue

Your playbook is the bible you refer to so the next time you’re challenged about the business, you approach it kitted up with knowledge from previous experiences as well as a starting form of words to use in response.

Background image by Joanna Kosinska , book composition by Studio JERO

Media & Presentation Training 2.0

Media and Presentation Training with Mangold Consultancy

As TV news anchors around the world set up studios in their homes with teleprompters, specialist lighting, makeup and HD broadcast cameras; interviewees must also up their game. “News” needs experts, spokespeople and human stories more than ever and the best people you will see and hear, the ones who get invited back, have received media & presentation training – even if they are speaking from a laptop in their living room. Continue reading “Media & Presentation Training 2.0”

How do you keep communicating when the crisis is never-ending?

Coronavirus - Crisis Communications

I have seen some brilliant emails and posts in the last few days – from my local Indian restaurant, Haweli, to Sainsbury’s, to other small business owners like me.  It doesn’t matter if you’re big or small; clear, regular and relevant communications are critical.

As we all adjust to the new “normal” personally and “business as usual” professionally, it occurred to me that there are some really simple tips for communicating in a crisis.

Continue reading “How do you keep communicating when the crisis is never-ending?”

“Be Kind” – Yorkshire Tea’s reputation management masterclass

Rishi Sunak "Quick Budget prep break making tea for the team. Nothing like a good Yorkshire brew."

Take one senior politician, one well-known and much-loved brand, and add social media. Stir together and what do you get?

That’s right, the perfect recipe for a Twitter storm.

That’s exactly what happened to Yorkshire Tea this weekend when Rishi Sunak MP, the Conservative MP for Richmond (in North Yorkshire as it happens) shared an image of himself making a cup of tea, standing next to a giant bag of the famous Yorkshire brew.

Continue reading ““Be Kind” – Yorkshire Tea’s reputation management masterclass”

Customer service – You say it best when you say nothing at all

Customer Services

We all have foibles when it comes to good service. Loud background music in your favourite restaurant – no thanks. Unsuitable substitutes in an online shop or a sell-by date less than 24 hours after it arrives. To me, these are like sour milk in my tea. A complete turn off, which could turn me to the Oat-side.

Continue reading “Customer service – You say it best when you say nothing at all”

Facebook: can I trust you again? A personal perspective.

Over the last 10 years my trust in Facebook has been eroded

When I first joined Facebook I trusted the platform and genuinely thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. It was so interactive, I could store and share photos of my young kids with friends (yes, I was that parent) and catch up on what everyone was up to from the comfort of my then small London flat. A few years later it seemed to be THE place to get breaking news which was always relevant to what I was interested in, thank you algorithms.

Over the last 10 years though that trust has been eroded. Continue reading “Facebook: can I trust you again? A personal perspective.”

Kudos to my ex colleagues at BBC Watchdog

BMW

Credit to BBC Watchdog for their investigation on last night’s programme which lead to BMW announcing a recall of hundreds of thousands of cars.

The truth is that no one really knows what goes on inside an organisation during a crisis, apart from the people managing it.  There are often multiple business objectives which reach far beyond being featured on the programme.  Continue reading “Kudos to my ex colleagues at BBC Watchdog”

Reputation management – where any business (big or small) should start from

Reputation Management Mangold Consultancy

Regardless of its size or influence, every business needs to establish and maintain a good reputation for the sake of its customers, employees and future existence. But if global superbrand Facebook struggles to manage it, what hope is there for smaller companies who don’t have millions to spend on corporate communications support and media training? Follow this starter guide to reputation management and a million pound budget won’t be necessary.
Continue reading “Reputation management – where any business (big or small) should start from”

Caught in the crossfire? Is a bad brand association risking your reputation?

Bad brand association

If you look at the risks to your business (via a risk audit) you’ll discover potential threats lie within your workforce, your suppliers, your processes, your equipment and perhaps even your premises. Identifying those threats and planning how to handle them is a huge step forward in managing your corporate reputation.

But what about the threats that lie outside your business? What happens when companies or personalities you’re affiliated to suffer a fall from grace? Do nothing and it looks like you don’t care or worse, condone their bad behaviour. Act and you may risk further damage. So how do you protect your business and respond in the right way? Continue reading “Caught in the crossfire? Is a bad brand association risking your reputation?”

How NOT to give a statement: a lesson from the Russian poisoning story

A lesson from the Russian poisoning story

Yesterday, the Government’s Chief Medical Officer Prof Dame Sally Davies made a statement. An important statement for any of the 500 or so people who had visited the restaurant and pub in Salisbury where trace amounts of the substance used to poison ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found.

Now I don’t live in Salisbury.  But my gut feeling, if I did, is that any advice about possible nerve agent contamination is probably worth listening to.

Continue reading “How NOT to give a statement: a lesson from the Russian poisoning story”