Having established crisis prevention systems in place means less crises overall and lower damage from those which can’t be avoided entirely.
The 3 Quickest Ways to Improve Crisis Prevention Success Rates
Posted on: 21, Mar 23
Experts Share Top Indicators You Might Be Headed Towards A Crisis
Posted on: 14, Jun 22
While crises, by their very nature, are somewhat unpredictable, there are often signs of trouble before brands find themselves neck-deep in crisis situations. Learning to watch for these indicators, and how to respond when they pop up, can mean the difference between success and failure when it’s all on the line.
5 Things You Should Never Do When You Get A Bad Review
Posted on: 26, May 22
Reduce the odds a single review turns into a truly damaging issue We see a lot of advice shared about the things you SHOULD do when you get a bad review, but how about a bit of crisis prevention focused advice to match? A key part of handling any negative …
How much pain does it take before you care about crisis prevention?
Posted on: 05, Aug 20
There is a psychological concept that 12-step programs introduced called “hitting bottom.” It refers to the point at which an individual feels so much pain from what he or she has been doing that the fear of continuing “as is” is greater than the fear of change. At that point, …
Five Crisis Communications #Fails for 2020
Posted on: 28, May 20
Avoid these #fail behaviors if you want to stay out of #crisiscomms trouble It’s the year 2020 and yet, sadly, some organizations and individuals seem to still be living 10 to 20 years in the past in terms of crisis communications best practices. Here are five ways in which they …
Marketing During A Pandemic (Without Creating Crises)
Posted on: 16, Apr 20
Protecting your reputation is critical when marketing and advertising [Editor’s note: We’ve all seen some seriously tone-deaf marketing messages going out as everyone works to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, so we thought this reminder from PR and marketing expert Megan Licursi was quite timely.] Advertising during today’s pandemic can …
COVID-19 crisis management: Preventing and responding to system flaws
Posted on: 20, Mar 20
Preventing issues where you can Unprecedented volumes of email are slowing servers and crashing some systems. Customer service lines for many businesses are completely overwhelmed no matter how well staffed they thought they were. Websites are crashing, running erratically, and otherwise not performing as usual as a result of extremely …
Death By Committee
Posted on: 10, Feb 20
How Some Well-Intentioned Meetings Increase the Risk of Crises Committees can be very useful for hearing different points of view, working out details of plans, and building consensus. Committees can also be the inadvertent cause of completely preventable crises and/or exacerbate the damage from unpreventable crises. I remember around the …
“Woke-Washing” Is Not The Solution For A Bad Reputation
Posted on: 08, Oct 19
[Editor’s note: Much like the hashtag fails we saw lead to crisis management disasters so commonly a few years back, the trend of “woke-washing” — trying to champion popular causes to demonstrate what a good company you are while sweeping some not-so-positive things under the rug — has already …
Crisis Prevention: H&R Block Agents Take ‘Empathy Training’
Posted on: 21, Mar 19
When we say 95% of the crises to which we’ve responded over the last 30 years of doing business have been preventable, we’re serious. That’s why we found it so interesting to read about a strategy H&R Block used in advance of our most recent (and predictably controversial) tax …
Is There a Loose Cannon on Your Deck?
Posted on: 04, Oct 18
Is There a Loose Cannon on Your Deck? By Jonathan Bernstein & Anthony Moore Loose cannon referred to an actual weapon before it entered the language as a metaphor. In the days before ships were equipped with fixed-turret guns, muzzle-loading cannons were mounted on wheels and rolled back and forth …
Whole Foods and Yellow Fever: How’d this one get through?
Posted on: 24, May 18
Failure to avoid predictable problems results in backlash Before it became the in-store restaurant for a new Whole Foods store in Long Beach, CA Yellow Fever was operating in two different SoCal locations. Co-founded by a Korean-American chef, it was an independent operation which took the risk of a controversial …
When April Fools Marketing Goes Wrong
Posted on: 08, Apr 18
It’s practically become a spectator sport to watch for marketing mistakes after any calendar event, and April Fools 2018 did not disappoint. There were numerous examples to choose from, like the French mayor who thought it would be a great laugh to get the town excited about new jobs that …
How to survive an accidental emailing crisis
Posted on: 10, Mar 18
[Editor’s note: Sensitive information is sent via email every single day, and making a mistake can create serious issues. This guest post looks at the most common risks and shares recommendations on how you might react if and when an email containing sensitive information is sent to the wrong address.] …
How your customer service can create (or prevent!) crises
Posted on: 12, Dec 17
Failures in day-to-day communications can create serious threats to reputation Customer service is a critical part of crisis management. The way each individual in your company treats stakeholders is a direct reflection of how your company feels about said stakeholders, whether it’s intended to be or not. Provide poor customer …