Page 37 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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1 18 Crisis Communication
the crisis as they will be about the crisis itself. It is therefore of the
utmost importance to appreciate the vital role that communication
plays in keeping a crisis under control.

Learn lessons from what has happened

Once the crisis has passed, the company can breathe more easily once
again. That does not mean that it can consider the crisis to be fully over
and filed away as a black page in its history. On the contrary: valuable
lessons can be learnt from a crisis… lessons that must be shared with
the company’s own employees and with colleagues in the sector in
order to prevent a similar crisis in the future. Every corporate leader
with an ounce of common sense monitors disasters in his or her sector
closely and learns lessons from them: ‘That problem could also strike
my company. How would we respond?’
The actions that personnel must take in the event of a crisis should,
ideally, be looked at interactively in advance: role-playing and simula-
tions to mirror reality sufficiently to identify potential difficulties in
dealing with a crisis. Such activities show both the internal community
and the outside world that the organization is aware of the possibility
of a crisis. It is wrong to think that such things will create suspicion
among personnel and other stakeholders; on the contrary, crisis
awareness begets trust.

A crisis for every day of the week

The company guaranteed never to be confronted with a crisis does not
exist. All companies are vulnerable, in all sectors. The potential for dis-
asters and calamities is therefore virtually infinite.

The food sector

Companies in the food industry are extremely susceptible to problem
situations. An error in the production process, incorrect quantities of a
specific ingredient, the remains of cleaning products that have ended
up in food… a small mistake can have major consequences. Product
crises regularly result in the recall of the products affected.
In November 1993, Nutricia found remains of a much-used disin-
fectant in its jars of Olvarit baby food with beef and pork. The quanti-
ties found far exceeded the legally allowed quantities. It was not clear