Better safe than sorry – make sure your company ticks these boxes before a crisis hits

It’s 5pm on a Friday. Laptops are closing and people are heading off from the office to enjoy their weekend. Then the phone rings: there is a data leak, a site accident or a critical story a journalist is about to publish in an hour.

As a communications consultant with a knack for crisis comms, I’ve watched this exact scene play out many times. Crises can hit you at the worst possible moment, or at least at the most inconvenient times.

I believe that preparing for crises is the key to successfully handling any situation. And it’s usually very simple stuff that is required: message templates, ways of working in a crisis, media trained spokespeople. The checklist isn’t long but it is mindful. When message templates are already drafted and spokespeople are already media-trained, it is easier to operate in the chaos.

This is the checklist I hand my clients before a crisis ever hits. With it, you can make sure you are crisis-ready, so everyone knows exactly what to do when things get real.

1. Map every possible crisis scenario

No worries, you will never map every scenario, even if you try. But you should at least try. 

Before you can prepare, you need to know what you’re preparing for. Get key people from across the organisation into a room and go through all the possible scenarios properly together: what external factors could damage your reputation? What risks sit inside your business model? What could go wrong internally that turns into a public problem?

Keep an eye on the media landscape on an ongoing basis, so new or shifting risks get added to the list before they catch you off guard.

The one crisis that hits you is often the one nobody thought of. That’s not a reason to skip this step. Naming the likely scenarios means that when something unnamed occurs, you already have a team that knows how to work the problem together.

2. Build a crisis communications plan

With the risks on the table, the next step is writing down exactly how you’ll respond when one of them happens.

A good plan covers these essentials: who’s on the core crisis team and what they’re responsible for, the immediate response protocol, the steps to take once a crisis is confirmed, your key stakeholders, which channels you’ll use, how internal stakeholders are informed and how issues get escalated.

Store the plan somewhere every key person can reach in seconds, not somewhere they have to go digging for it. Managing a crisis becomes easier when everyone involved has a clear picture of the pattern the organisation’s crisis communications follows.

3. Prepare your messaging in advance

Finding the right words gets a lot easier when some of the groundwork is already done. You can’t write a ready-made message for every possible scenario, but strong holding statements and message templates give you a running start instead of a blank page.

For your most likely scenarios, draft a rough Q&A in advance. Even a partial one saves precious time.

4. Train your spokespeople

Practising the tough questions and the techniques for answering them, before you’re in an actual crisis, makes all the difference. Your spokespeople should know how to handle media and they should be offered the chance to build confidence through actual practice.

Even seasoned spokespeople can get nervous in an interview when the stakes are real or when a journalist is asking a really tough question. For example, it’s important that spokespeople are able to stick to the company’s key messages even when tough questions come up, and to control the narrative around the crisis.

5. Update your plan and keep practising

None of this planning matters if it just sits in a folder gathering dust. Check in at least twice a year to make sure that every key person knows the plan well and has actually rehearsed using it. Your messages and scenarios need updating too. What was accurate or likely a year ago might not be anymore.

Also keep a close eye on your competitors. Consider whether the crises or reputational issues they face are ones you should be prepared for too, and remember that reputational issues within your field always have the potential to spill over and affect your company as well.