It Isn’t Over: Crisis Communication as Social Distancing is Lifted

Hippocrates and Galen are foundational figures in the history of medicine (remember the Hippocratic Oath) -- but when it came to the plague they had simple guidance -- “Cito, Longe, Tarde,” which translates as “Leave quickly, go far away and come back slowly.”

Hippocrates and Galen, Encyclopedia Britannica 

Wise advice that we have in our own way followed, self-isolated with our WiFi and streaming services in our places of residence. 

Now we are in week 8+ of shelter-at-home isolation we are just beginning to hopefully look toward the easing of social distancing -- and that faraway, long-ago state of business we once called “normal”.

Even the transition back to “normal” represents a crisis -- if you haven’t activated your Crisis Communication plan up to this point, you should for the transition back to normal business.

Here are some simple guidelines for crisis management from a PR and messaging POV during the pandemic (or any crisis).

Corporate Crisis Communications procedures are often like emergency fire evacuation procedures in your household -- you probably thought about it five years ago, maybe you practiced once or twice. Then you put it aside feeling ready for the remote possibility and not thinking to actually practice.

Odds are if you have a Crisis Communication plan, it hasn’t been put to a test like this one. It will need to be revised and you will need key elements to make it usable during the outbreak.

Establish a clear chain of command and approvals for crisis communications. Identify your approved spokespeople, broken out by priorities and issues. Your CEO may be your preferred spokesperson for bigger publications, but it’s important to respond quickly to requests and concerns quickly and you don’t want one person to become inundated with requests, so you will want to have a few people who can carry your messaging especially for timely requests and smaller publications.

Create a comprehensive contact list including all decision makers and spokespeople. This list should include mobile phone numbers, WhatsApp, or whatever reaches people most immediately. The pandemic is not following normal business hours, and those who are part of the response team should expect to be inconvenienced on weekends and after hours if needed.

Create an FAQ document with messaging to address all major parts of the pandemic -- including closures, social distancing, precautions you are taking, and impact on your business. This will help you keep a consistent message to the press and your clients while using multiple spokespeople.

Update your work from home policies. If you are already a decentralized business, you may need to formalize what has already been the norm with your company -- if you are not you will need to spend a lot more time setting expectations, putting tools in place for project tracking, file sharing, etc. Even if the tools are already in use, you need them now more than ever to keep your workforce productive and to show the public that you are operating smoothly.

Stay up to date on latest developments. Your response team needs to keep up to date with the constantly changing policies on social distancing and closures. It should be at least one person’s job to monitor the situation every day and update the team.

Don’t overlook the necessity of communicating clearly with your team. This isn’t business as usual and you need workers to know what is going on in order to present a clear, orderly, consistent message to the public. 

Create a clear chain of command for elevating media and client questions so customer-facing employees don’t feel put on the spot and having to answer questions without knowing who to elevate the questions to. When a reporter gets ahold of a salesperson who doesn’t have your messaging, you are rolling the dice on getting some potentially negative coverage.

Share your FAQs document with sales, customer service, and anyone customer facing. Even if their primary duty in this is to elevate requests to the Crisis Communication Team, you need to arm them with basic responses -- or you risk off-handed responses to press and customers.

Consider your Crisis Communications Messaging document a living document -- questions will come in that you haven’t thought of when you drafted the document. Continue to address those questions and don’t leave your team unprepared to answer questions -- improvisational responses will dilute your messaging and can have major side effects.

Stay informed and ready to act. Continuously monitor the media and regularly engage with internal and external stakeholders to stay abreast of the situation and to be prepared to act swiftly. Assemble a preliminary crisis plan based on recommendations of public health organizations in anticipation that the spread of the disease reaches any part of your organization.

Communicate with your internal audience first. A weekly standing meeting for updates done over Zoom should be effective and updates in an employee newsletter or on your intranet are good ideas. It’s a great way to test your messaging -- and to make sure everyone in your business has the tools they need.

This can be tricky because downplaying the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic would be a mistake. You need to feel the pain of your customers -- do not try to talk them out of their perceptions.

But while governments around the world struggle with messaging, your business can provide leadership. And the best way to do that is to find the silver lining for everyone -- whether it’s a matter of new opportunities created by the crisis (e.g., working from home can mean better work-life balance, how to be productive during the pandemic, etc.) or by helping to address their pain (“We can help you do payroll online, in a flash”) you will show leadership by acknowledging problems -- and presenting solutions.

The private sector has a clear opportunity to take a lead in an absence of clear leadership at an institutional and government level. In fact, companies are profit-incentivized to do so. When we build relationships we help ensure the future of our business.

To reach your audience, consider all the consumer touch points you use on a regular basis and realize that the goals of these inbound and outbound marketing efforts have temporarily changed -- now you are working with your customers, leads, and investors to create solutions.

Email Outreach - Any nurturing campaigns should be revised to reflect the news reality. All CTA’s should be secondary to providing real information and should generally be soft-sells (e.g., sign up for a webinar, learn more while you have the time at home.)

Social Media - This is a chance to show you share the world with your clients and relate to their needs. Share useful links -- some not going back to your own site.

Company Blogs -- If you don’t have one, it’s easy to start on Medium if you can’t add it to your site due to IT constraints. Get one or a few of your spokespeople writing about the situation. Use some of the same content you use for your emails. Use ghost writers where necessary. The important part is to actively communicate. 

Your Crisis Communications team will need to stay on top of developments and managing communications through every stage of the COVID-19 lockdown, even as social distancing is eased and a sense of normalcy returns. Don’t let the first signs of returning normalcy lead you into complacency.

Being part of the Crisis Communications team means that you are an important part of your company and you are doing valuable work to preserve it -- it also means you will be inconvenienced with a new responsibility which will definitely make your life harder.

For the first major interviews, all spokespeople will be trying their best. It’s surprisingly common for people to lose the sense of urgency -- and the enthusiasm -- that really any media interview deserves once they are doing their third interview for the week or the day.

The Crisis Communications Team will need to show real leadership, and during a time like this it will take some real dedication. 

But keep proactively sharing a clear, consistent message, with positive media points about your company and your clients.

We don’t know what will come from this pandemic, but it is probable that business will soldier on and learn to grow -- it’s just a matter of how and how soon. 

Now is the time to be prepared and be part of the solution. It’s highly preferable to being outmoded by the problem.

Justin Roberti has a background in media and fine arts and has been writing and doing PR/marketing for over 20 years for Fortune 500 and startups in media, gaming, consumer tech, mobile tech, fintech, and blockchain. He is the PR Director for blockchain and digital agency Zage.io.