Managing the Crisis Online

Uh-Oh Crisis management is Tough. Now Imagine it in Internet Time
By Joanne R. Helperin

Johnson & Johnson pioneered crisis management in 1982, when tampering forced the company to recall its Tylenol products. Today, protecting a company's reputation and limiting its financial losses is much harder. The Internet's ability to globally distribute information / misinformation in an instant has made crisis management more critical and more difficult. The number of things that can take management by surprise has grown beyond sliding stock prices, product defects, and workers going postal to include server failures and hacker attacks.

But the scariest part is that is doesn't take a real calamity to damage the corporate image. In fact, it doesn't take anything real at all to threaten the brand you've worked so hard to uphold. The old adage that "a happy customer will tell a friend, but an unhappy customer will tell 10 friends" is racing on meth when the Net's involved. Unhappy customers can now share their opinion of your company or its products with millions of "friends"

A customer with a company complaint can go to Baddealing.com, eComplaints.com, Fight Back!, bitchaboutit.com, or TheSquakyWheel.com, to name a few. Someone with a grudge against the boss can take potshots on FuckedCompany.com. Other consumer complaint sites are company-specific, like WeHatePacificBell.com, which is not only a forum for Pacific Bell-bashing, but also a list of links to similar sites.

While the new technology aggravates the problem, it's possible for the same technology to alleviate it. The Net is also becoming a powerful weapon on the crisis manager's own arsenal. For example, PlanetFeedback.com forwards complaints to the appropriate companies in an effort to elicit an apology or resolve the problem. This provides the companies with the opportunity to salvage the relationship. To encourage businesses to take it all seriously, the site tracks the percentage of complaints that each company responds to and publishes its "response rate."

Smart companies react to complaints; smarter companies use complaints as an early warning system. If enough people are griping about the same problem, it might warrant investigation to avoid a bigger crisis. Too few companies monitor consumer opinion on the Net, says Maria Russel, chair of the public relations department at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. PR nightmares like that experienced by Tommy Hilfiger will always catch a company by surprise, she says, if no one has an ear to the cyberground. [In late 1996, a rumor began to spread on the Net that clothier Hilfiger had appeared on Oprah making racist comments. Though the rumor was untrue, only when a boycott was threatened did the company post denial. The hoax continues to pop up.]

"New companies don't know the old rules [of customers service], and old companies don't know the new platforms," Russell says. Using the Internet for customer feedback is only the beginning. The Web also plays an important role in disseminating information to consumers and the press during a crisis. Companies are now expected to respond to a crisis immediately, putting pressure on executives and PR professionals alike to be ready for anything at any time. A company that doesn't have in place a detailed crisis prevention plan that includes the Internet is very likely to get blindsided.

Because most companies are not prepared to take on crises by themselves, an industry has sprung up to help shepherd businesses through calamity. Some large PR firms specialize in crisis communications; others outfits provide more comprehensive contingency planning and disaster-management services. All use the Internet as a weapon.

For example, Atlanta-based Crisis Management International (CMI), which has handles petrochemical explosions, workplace shootings, and the World Trade Center bombing, has developed the Web-based ProGuide. Preformatted crisis planner are filled in electronically then hosted either on a company's server or on CMI's. This allows instant access and updates, which are invaluable when a crisis strikes. The ProGuide can also be downloaded to a PDA, so it the CEO quits unexpectedly, the Marketing VP on vacation in Belize can still respond to events. This instant accessibility also allows organizations to update and distribute policies and procedures and update detailed contact information for key players.

Even when confronted with a worse-case scenario, a company that is prepared can simultaneously manage its internal chaos and display the best face possible to the public. Such was the case when Swissair Flight 111crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia in September 1998, killing 229 people. The company was prepared with a Ôghost page' of contact information for the corporate Website. When the company learned of the crash, it inserted the information about the crash, activated the ghost page and put a big button for it on the homepage, so the thousands of people seeking information could quickly get to the answers.

Crisis managers think that this single act dramatically cut down on phone calls to the company, particularly from the press, which was essential while the airline dealt with a bombardment of calls from distraught relatives. The public saw a company that cared and was on top of the situation. Swissair also maintained control over its imageÉ Would you in a similar situation?

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