Crisis Communications: managing reputation in a crisis

A crisis can hit any business or organisation, of any size and industry, at any time.

It doesn’t have to be a rail crash or an oil spill.

It may not even be your fault:

• it may be an ‘act of God’ such as bad weather or illness within your staff, which means you can’t produce or deliver your product or service
• it may be a discontented employee who decides to spread rumours about you, or even poach your customers
• it may be human error

But of course it may be that you’re simply not doing your job properly.

Whatever the cause, all of these will damage your reputation, with your staff, your stakeholders, your clients and the wider world, especially if the media runs a story about it.

You could argue, well, the Daily Mail will never be interested in my little problems. That may well be true, but if you are a B2B business and the most influential trade papers or websites in your sector run it, then that can be just as bad.

Which is why you need to be prepared, you need to anticipate what might go wrong and plan for it, you need to know how to protect your reputation, or even enhance it, by having a proper crisis management strategy that you can implement immediately.

On behalf of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, I am delivering a workshop, Crisis comms – managing reputation in a crisis, with Nicky Rudd of Padua Communications on 8 October in Guildford.

This is aimed at business owners, marketing and PR consultants and social media
manager who have the responsibility for managing the public reputation of an
organisation or who might be expected to deal with communications at the time
of a major incident.

In the workshop, we’ll look at how crises evolve, how the media reacts to them, how to plan for them and what to do should the worst happen.

The workshop will be highly interactive and thought-provoking leading delegates through a range of evolving scenarios to which they will be expected to frame a response.

The aim is to challenge traditional thinking and leave you with a new confidence for remaining in control in emergency situations, by knowing the crisis communications procedures you need in place to protect your reputation.

 Click here to book a space on the workshop. If you would like more information, contact Ann Wright on 020 8332 6200.

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