Crisis Communications Plan Can Help Avoid External Crisis
Written by PR Etc., Inc.
Published by Rockford Register Star
Monday, October 9, 2006

There are two basic elements to a crisis communications plan:

• How your company handles the actual crisis to curtail loss of revenue or employee downtime
• How you will communicate with the public and the media about the crisis

If handled effectively enough internally, there may be no need to alert external audiences. Obviously, the nature of the issue will determine whether you need to provide information to the media.

There are literally thousands of crisis scenarios that could happen to any business – from falling stock prices to tainted food, from a strike to major interruptions in service, among many, many others. Listing all the possible situations might at least begin encouraging your organization’s management team to develop a crisis communications plan.

If an overall plan is not developed, it’s essential to at least know how the information is going to be provided to the media and by whom when a crisis happens. In other words, an effective crisis communications plan may be the most important part of your planning process.