Q&A with Nikki Scrivener, director and co-founder, Fourth Day PR
Why should tech companies spend time worrying about something that may never happen?
When disaster strikes, it’s usually at the worst possible time. Chances are that it won’t be a Tuesday morning when all your staff are available to help. It’ll be the end of a busy week, or just as key members of your team are about to set off on holiday. The recent CrowdStrike outage was a prime example, taking place on a Friday at the start of the summer holidays. If you aren’t prepared, it’s easy to mishandle communications and make matters far worse, potentially causing irreparable damage to your reputation.
What kind of preparation would you suggest?
Begin by mapping out your audiences, brainstorming how various scenarios might affect them and deciding what action you will take. Then you need to work out how you’ll go about getting in touch with them and in what order. Make sure that everyone knows who should be contacted first, and who’s allowed to act as a spokesperson. If important stakeholders hear the news through a third party, or feel they have been neglected, resentment will rise quickly and bad feeling is more likely to spread.
What’s the first thing you should do if something major goes wrong?
If the problem is serious enough to be affecting a large number of people, you may only have very limited time before the news spreads. In some cases, a story on social media may even be your first alert that something’s wrong. Either way, your immediate priority is to ascertain the facts as quickly as possible and decide your course of action. Issue a statement swiftly, even if the statement just says that you are trying to ascertain the facts.
Should you say sorry? If so, when?
If you know that your organisation is at fault, apologise at once. George Kurtz, CEO of Crowdstrike, received a great deal of criticism for failing to say sorry in his initial communication about the outage, which distracted attention from the fact that the company was busy working to fix the problem. And don’t speculate - only ever issue statements in which you can show your authority and emphasise that you are taking control of the situation.
How should you keep up with social media?
The same authoritative approach applies to social media. State how frequently you will post updates, and stick to it, even if you have nothing new to say. Show that you’re taking charge of the situation even if you haven’t yet cracked the problem itself.
Any tips for spokespeople?
Train your spokespeople to deal with the media. It doesn’t matter that you don’t yet know what your crisis may be, it’s important for the senior team to have learned how to handle being questioned under pressure. And make sure that you choose the right people to speak. If someone is under so much pressure that they are emotional, or angry, keep them away from a mic at all costs. A rule of thumb in a crisis is to stick entirely to written statements - at least at first. This is particularly true if there are legal implications to the issue - though beware the time delay that can take place while your legal team reviews your statement. You may find that the story has moved on while you’ve been finalising what you want to say.
Finally, at a glance, here are a few crisis dos and don’ts:
- Do prepare a plan and a communication flow
- Do train your spokespeople
- Do update your crisis plan regularly
- Don’t say “no comment” - it can create a story in itself
- Don’t speculate or lie
- Do apologise if it’s clearly your fault.
- Do say how you’re fixing the problem
