Crisis Communication in Public Relations - Essay Example

?Crisis Communication Crisis is such a situation which leads to undesirable negative outcomes for the organization (Coombs, 1999). It affects the organizations badly and leads to worst situations. In the crisis period organizations must know how to respond to these situations for surviving, growing as well as prospering (Benoit, 1995; Coombs and Holladay, 1996, Coombs and Schmidt, 2000; Benoit and Brinson, 1999). Each and every organization remains vulnerable to certain extent of crises. It is very important for the organizations to remain prepared for such crises situation by planning for some crises communication techniques. The next portion of the study would reflect the importance of effective crises communication within an organization. Crises Communication is considered as the sub speciality of the profession related to public relation designed for defending or protecting an organization from facing any kind of public challenge associated with its reputation (Greenberg and Elliott, 2009). The challenges may arise in the form of any criminal allegation, investigation or inquiry from the government agency, any sort of media inquiry, violation of rules and regulations associated with the environmental conditions etc. In today’s world of social media, it is certain that every company will face crisis. The question is when the crisis is going to take place. The combined effort of millions of common people playing the role of ‘citizen journalists’ along with infinite number of different online platforms guarantees the organizations that they would be victimized by someone, by means of spreading damaging message, which are often rumours. If somehow those rumours are found to be true then the companies can be put to defensive corner before they can gather relevant evidences in their own favour. When there is an emergency, then it becomes very important for the organizations to communicate. If the business operations of the organizations get disrupted then the immediate reaction of the customers will be that they would enquire that what impact will this incident have on them. The regulators or the government officials will feel the urgency to inquire about what is happening in their community. The employees would also get worried and try to seek information. Thus, the most important component in this situation is to prepare for the crisis communication plan, which would enable the organization to clearly communicate to the internal as well as external stakeholders. The organizations should be able to respond accurately, promptly and confidently in such a case of an emergency. The audiences must be reached by these organizations suffering due to crisis for satisfying them with the information that they require. The image and reputation of the organizations can have a positive or negative impact based on the public perception related to this crisis. Thus, in order to face this crisis situation and maintain its reputation it becomes very important for the organizations to plan for an effective crisis communication strategy which would enable them to satisfy the customers, employees and other stakeholders with sufficient justification for the incident. Understanding the audiences properly is very important for the organizations suffering from crisis situation. It helps in reaching to these audiences with the most effective communication plan which would satisfy them. There exist many potential audiences who want information at the crisis situation and also after its occurrence. The main challenge that remains for the organization is identifying these potential audiences, determining their needs for the information and then identifying that whether the organization is able to communicate and explain to these audiences. The potential audiences for the organizations include customers; employees; news media; community; the management, investors and directors of the company, government officials etc. The organizations find that public importance is highly significant with advancement of technology and public access to all the information. Thus, public support is highly essential at the time of any crisis situation. It is the public which has power to turn against any organization and cause harm to its reputation and credibility. Satisfying the public at every point of time enables getting support and assistance from them in overcoming the crisis situation. When the crisis strikes any particular company then it should immediately start communicating with the public. It should involve preparing any public statement within few hours. The companies should be ready to present reports and statements in their own coverage, which they would present as primary source of information for the reporters. The reporters generally file their stories with or even without the cooperation and permission of the companies undergoing such crisis. Thus, the companies affected due to crisis situation should never avoid facing the reporters in those times as this also provides an opportunity to the competitors in secretly relishing the affected company’s misfortune. The outside sources are mostly inaccurate but if the affected companies do not remain prepared with their own coverage statements then it would enable those false charges to become broadly acceptable. When media plays its role after a crisis striking any particular organization, it speaks on behalf of the victims in such incident i.e. customers, other stakeholders etc. It becomes very difficult for the corporations to appear sympathetic in front of the media, customers, and government officials. Every organization should act as the spokesperson at the time of this crisis situation. If the company elects someone at very high position in the hierarchy to speak about the issue with the public then the public would conclude that the crisis situation is more crucial with much higher impact than expected by them. On the other hand, if the company elects someone low in the hierarchy then the public would conclude that the affected company is not paying enough attention to the issue. Another technique of facing the crisis situation is building a social media network followed by engaging audiences before the crisis strikes. The online loyal customers can defend the integrity if something goes wrong and it would reduce the chances or scope of the third parties in voluntarily vouching the company’s reputation. The third step is wide use of internet and WWW in building up a strong public relation. The innovation of internet and WWW seem to be diffusing across the news rooms and organizations at different levels and varying rates (Taylor and Perry, 2004). The WWW would help the organizations in making strategic communication efforts and serve as an important strategic communication tool. According to Weick (1995), it is not the crisis which is the major reason of concern but the main reason of concern is that how organizations respond to such crisis situation. Some industries like the high tech firms prefer adopting internet during their crisis situation as the crisis communication tool. The internet as an effective crisis communication tool can play one way as well as two way communication role for all types of organizations while communicating with the public and media. The two companies which have been selected for finding out the outcome of the implementation of crisis communication strategies are Qantas and Fosters. Qantas is known as the flag carrier of Australia. It is located in Mascot in New South Wales, Australia. The company failed in successfully executing the crisis communication plan. The customers i.e. the passengers or travellers were highly dissatisfied and found to be shouting at the airline staffs. The final impact was that most of the passengers felt never to travel in that airline again (Marketing Magazine, 2013). The failure in convincing and satisfying the travellers with appropriate reason resulted in one of the biggest PR crises for the company. Once it was termed as the flying kangaroo, but the PR crises resulted in affecting its reputation very badly. Foster’s beer group is a well known Australian beer group which deals with soft drinks and brewing. It is situated at Melbourne, Australia. The company has effectively carried out its crisis communication plan. It has followed a stepwise crisis communication plan for achieving the trust and loyalty of its customers. It keeps its stakeholders in the first place. It uses internet effectively to maintain long term relationship with the customers. The customer loyalty towards the organization has helped in maintaining strong public relations. Crisis situation leads to various undesirable outcomes for the organization (Lyu, 2012). It has negative impact on the organizations and leads to worst situations for themselves. Crises Communication is a successful professional activity related to public relation. It helps in overcoming the challenges faced at the time of crisis situation. The organization may plan for preparing a report or statement in favour of their own in order to present it to the general public as well as the media to give an explanation of the crisis situation and also meet their queries and needs. However, the selection of crisis communication tool should be done in such manner that it turns out to be the most effective one. The examples of Qantas and Forbes represent how failure in conducting effective crisis communication plans would result in failure for the organizations. Reference List Benoit, W. L. and Brinson, S. L., 1999. Queen Elizabeth’s image repair discourse: Insensitive royal or compassionate queen. Public Relations Review, 25, pp. 145–156. Benoit, W. L., 1995. Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany: State University of New York Press. Coombs, W. T. and Holladay, S. J., 1996. Communication and attributions in a crisis: An experimental study of crisis communication. Journal of Public Relations Research, 8, pp. 279–295. Coombs, W. T. and Schmidt, L., 2000. An empirical analysis of image restoration: Texaco’s racism crisis. Journal of Public Relations Research, 12, pp. 163–178. Coombs, W. T., 1999. Information and compassion in crisis responses: A test of their effects. Journal of Public Relations Research, 11, pp. 125–142. Greenberg, J. and Elliott, C., 2009. A cold cut crisis: Listeriosis, maple leaffoods, and the politics of apology. Canadian Journal of Communication, 34, pp. 189-204. Lyu, J. C. 2012. A comparative study of crisis communication strategies between Mainland China and Taiwan: The melamine-tainted milk powder crisis in the Chinese context. Public Relations Review, 38, pp. 779– 791. Marketing Magazine, 2013. Qantas’ PR Crisis – The Death of a National Icon or All Part of Business? [online] Available at: < http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/qantas%E2%80%99-pr-crisis-%E2%80%93-the-death-of-a-national-icon-or-all-part-of-business-2-7544/#.UiCF6394pkg> [Accessed on 30 August 2013]. Taylor, M. and Perry, D. C., 2004. Diffusion of traditional and new media tactics in crisiscommunication. Public Relations Review, 31, pp. 209-217. Weick, K., 1995. Sense making in organizations. CA: Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Read More