Before jumping into establishing a successful crisis communication strategy, it is important to reflect by asking yourself these questions to ensure you are prepared to communicate effectively during a moment of difficulty:
- What? – Figure out what it is you want to say, and make that message customer-centric and relevant to the situation at hand.
- Who? – Use client data analysis to divide your audience into specific subsets so you can tailor your content to them and boost your conversion rates.
Desiree Peterkin Bell, President and CEO of DPBell & Associates offers five steps that can help ensure productive communication during less-than-ideal circumstances.
Maintain Openness, Honesty, and Clarity
The cornerstones of solid communication are honesty, openness, and dependability. While it’s natural for business owners to want to duck out of tough talks, a crisis is not the time to hunker down and avoid them.
You may want to look over your recent messages to make sure you haven’t come across as insensitive or out of touch. You should only reveal as much as you know.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes and Show Some Compassion
If you want to support your clients sustainably without going bankrupt, you need to examine your finances closely. Discover how to tailor your offerings to each individual client’s needs so that they can be of immediate use to them at this time of need. Customer service and problem-solving should be your top priorities.
Establish Protocols
There are many potential problems in the position of spokesperson that could end up costing your firm a lot of money. It is your duty to control the flow of false information on behalf of your organization by staffing the department responsible for it with thoroughly vetted and trained individuals. To further safeguard the company’s good name, it is important to have a set of protocols in place and to make sure that the entire staff is aware of them.
Identify and Employ the Appropriate Means of Communication
Using social media to have a more in-depth conversation with potential and existing clients is crucial. About half of all small firms don’t use social media for marketing purposes. Using social media to promote your brand is an effective way to “humanize” it to consumers..
Check in, Keep Tabs, and Talk Things Over
Maintaining open lines of communication is especially important in the event of a crisis.
By breaking your clientele into smaller groups, you can tailor your approach to each one individually. Keeping tabs on client happiness and comments might help your organization grow in the long run. Listen to what the public has to say and act accordingly.
The Bottom Line
During a crisis, it can be disheartening to see clients behave differently than you expected them to, but this is usually because your strategy was flawed. Now that you have the tools you need to communicate clearly, you can craft an effective communication strategy and avoid the common pitfalls that have led many business owners to ignore the global financial crisis.
To learn more contact Desiree Peterkin Bell.
