Crisis manuals can be as extensive as 200 pages or as slim as a single page document. Regardless of the depth of the crisis communication plan, all communication professionals need to incorporate a linear, understandable process to initiate the plan.
Worldcom partner Cookerly work extensively with clients to produce effective crisis communication strategies and procedures. When working with clients, they emphasize the importance of planning how the communication plan will be implemented.
Cookerly outlines three main components of their process:
Plan the notification process
Every plan needs an established and tested notification process for employees and others to know who to contact about and incident. This type of communication is typically directed to the crisis team leaders and key executives, which leads to additional notifications that alert team members.
For communication teams, it is Important to stay on top of alerts so that media, opponents and others do not shape the narrative with misleading or inaccurate information. Therefore, the notification process should be simple and understood by the entire team to stay on top of responses.
Assessment Phase
During the assessment phase, the crisis team leader and other decision makers need to evaluate the scope of the incident and determine appropriate response strategies and resources. During this time, discussions begin about available facts, impacted stakeholders, and reactive vs. proactive strategies to guide next steps.
Read the final phase of the process for activating a crisis communication plan on the Cookerly blog.
Cookerly is an award-winning marketing communications firm based in Atlanta, Georgia. Since 1991, Cookerly has focused on increasing powering perceptions through media relations, managing reputations through effective crisis communication, producing measurable results with digital marketing and developing integrated marketing strategies for clients.
