Crisis Management: Strategies and Tactics for Effective Communication

Learn about crisis management strategies and tactics for effective communication in this comprehensive guide. Understand the importance of crisis communication in protecting an organization's reputation and brand identity. Explore different crisis communication strategies and tactics, such as denial, evasion of responsibility, blame, attack the accuser, apology, and corrective action. Discover the three stages of crisis communication: pre-crisis, in-crisis, and post-crisis. Gain valuable insights from research and case studies in crisis communication.

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Crisis Management
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Executive Summary
A crisis is a calamity that can befall an organization at any time. Whenever it happens,
the management should never give up, should come up with appropriate strategies to deal with it.
The back always stops with the management because whenever a crisis occurs, the management
gets blamed for it. This happens even if it is the organization or its stakeholders that suffer as a
result of the crisis. In this regard, crisis communication should be employed as one of the
strategies through which the effects of a crisis can be addressed. What should be done in this
case, therefore, is that the organization should institute a crisis communication team to deal with
the matter. For the team to succeed in informing the public and disseminating the right
information, it should use the most appropriate crisis communication strategies and tactics
before, during, and after the actual occurrence of the crisis.

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Introduction
A crisis is an unwanted event that can occur in an organization. A crisis can occur
naturally or as a result of human action. Natural crisis might arise from the natural disasters like
earthquake, flooding, tsunami or hurricane. Man-made crises can be attributed to human factors
like errors, negligence, information theft, or accounting fraud. No matter how stable an
organization might be, research has established that all organizations are vulnerable to a crisis.
Whenever a crisis occurs, the perpetrator can be the organization or someone else. However,
what remains constant is that a crisis negatively impacts on the organization in many ways. The
characteristics of a crisis include abrupt occurrence, lack of information on the possible
occurrence, high pace of occurrence, and negative effects on the organization as a whole or its
stakeholders (Ulmer, Sellnow & Seeger 2017). Communication should be used as a key
component of crisis management because it is what links the organization to its stakeholders and
the general public. In this regard, it should be upon the management of every organization to
have a well-outlined crisis communication plan both at the pre-crisis, during crisis and post-crisis
stages.
The Benefits of Crisis Communication
Crisis communication is essential component of the public relations initiatives. All the
organizations should have a well-outlined crisis communication strategy because it means a lot
to them. The crisis communication should be part of the public relations strategies because it
serves many roles in the organization.
First, it helps in the protection of the reputation of an organization. Whenever a crisis
occurs, it negatively impacts on the image of the organization (Sadri, Hasan, Ukkusuri &

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Cebrian 2018). This usually happens if the crisis causes some damage or negative effects on the
organization, its products, clients, employees or any other stakeholder. Hence, to protect the
damaged reputation and save it from fur the damage, the management should have a crisis
communication effort to swiftly respond to the crisis (Ulmer & Pyle 2016). Secondly, crisis
communication is important because it protects the organization’s brand identity from any form
of damage that might arise in case of an unprecedented crisis (Roshan, Warren & Carr 2016). Al
these demonstrate that crisis communication plays a significant role in enabling an organization
to overcome the challenges faced as a result of the occurrence of a crisis.
Crisis Communication Strategies
Crisis communication is a specialty within the public relations that requires to be handled
in a professional manner. It is a sensitive communication task that should be executed well, lest it
cause further harm to an organization in case of a crisis. Once an organization has a well-
endowed crisis communication team, it can be on the right track of effecting an effective crisis
communication whenever a need arises van der (Meer 2016). However, one of the most
important things to do is to choose the right crisis communication strategy to choose as long as it
befits the situation. The choice of the strategy should be grounded on various crisis
communication theories like the Integrated Crisis Mapping (ICM) model, Social-Mediated Crisis
Communication (SMCC) model, Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), and Image
repair theory (IRT). Once these theories are appropriately applied, it can be possible for the team
to choose the most appropriate crisis communication strategy from among the following:
Denial: When a crisis occurs, the management can choose to deny it. Denial simply means
refusal. What the management does in this case is to refuse to accept that ‘rumored’ crisis occurs.

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Denial works because it can make the public to believe that, despite the information on the crisis,
it actually never took place as claimed (Pedersen 2017). Denial works if properly applied
because it changes the understanding and perception of the public to which the communication is
directed.
Evasion of Responsibility: Evasion refers to an escape. When a crisis occurs, but the
management feels that it should not take responsibility for it, it can choose to evade it. Meaning,
it uses its spokesperson to acknowledge the crisis, but flatly refutes that it was the organization
that was responsible for it (Strandberg & Vigsø 2016). To succeed in such an evasion tricks, the
management should instead divert the responsibility to a natural cause, accident or any other
third parties.
Blame: Blame is a trick in which one escapes and instead throws the responsibility or liability to
another one. During a crisis communication, the management should not accept a responsibility,
but instead direct it to someone else. Blame game can be effective if properly applied (Einwiller,
Laufer & Ruppel 2017). It can enable the management to win the confidence of the public by
making them believe that the organization had no hand in the crisis because it is someone else
who was responsible for it.
Attack the Accuser: According to this strategy, the crisis communication team should
communicate offensive message to the members of the public. In case of a crisis, the
organization should not accept to take responsibility (Lin, Spence, Sellnow & Lachlan 2016).
Instead, it should a diversionary tactic by attacking the person, people or the organization that
had linked it to the crisis and accused it of irresponsibility (Jin, Austin, Eaddy, Spector, Reber &
Espina 2018). This strategy works because it counteracts the accuser and makes it vulnerable for

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blame by the public who are made to believe that it is the one that should be held accountable for
the crisis.
Apology: Here, the management uses the crisis communication team to disseminate the message
of regret and acceptance of liability. During apology, the management should acknowledge the
occurrence of the crisis, take responsibility for it, and ask for forgiveness from the affected or
concerned parties (Frandsen & Johansen 2016). This strategy can be helpful because it con
enable he organization to redeem its damaged reputation acceptance and apology can make the
public to believe that the organization is remorseful and concerned.
Corrective Action: Here, the management communicates to the public that it is the one
responsible for the crisis. At the same time, it gives an assurance that it will be responsible for it
and is ready to do whatever it can to salvage the situation. It shows that there is concern,
compassion, and ingratiation by the management (Roshan, Warren & Carr 2016). This kind of
acceptance and commitment is appropriate because it can save the image and brand of the
organization that might have been lost due to the crisis.
Crisis Communication Tactics
Crisis communication is an organized initiative that should not just be done for the sake
of it. Neither should it be done promptly just to address a crisis that might have arisen. It is a
valuable communication strategy whose effectiveness means a lot to an organization in as far as
crisis management is concerned. The communication process should be organized into three
main stages:
Pre-Crisis Stage

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This stage involves the activities that are taken before the actual occurrence of the crisis.
As already hinted, crisis communication is a process that requires a lot of time to be initiated,
executed, and completed. During this stage, therefore, there are many activities that take place.
The first thing to do during this stage is the conducting of research to collect data that can be
used to analyze the situation and determine the possibility of a crisis (Coombs 2018). Tis should
be followed by the development of a crisis management plan, its implementation, assessment,
and evaluation. Such processes should be regularly and continuously done in the organization.
In-Crisis Stage
This is the second phase of crisis communication process. As its name suggests, in-crisis
takes place during the course of the crisis. Meaning, it entails all the activities that are done when
the crisis actually occurs. During this stage, a number of activities take place. These include the
institution of the crisis management team, identification of the crisis, collection, and
dissemination of information to be used by the management in the decision-making process
(Coombs 2015). Each of these activities should be done well because they mean a lot to the
organization in as far as crisis communication is concerned.
Post-Crisis Stage
This is the last phase of crisis communication process. It refers to the initiatives that are
taken by the crisis management team and the entire management after the actual occurrence of
the crisis. During this stage, a number of activities are undertaken (Whitten & Coombs 2017).
These include the provision of the necessary information to the public; updating of the public
whenever a need arises; analysis of the crisis management efforts; collaboration of the
management with the crisis victims; review of the failure or successes of the crisis

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communication process; and follow-up of the crisis management process (Schwarz, Seeger &
Auer 2016). The success of the crisis communication process depends on the effectiveness of the
crisis management team and management in the execution of these tasks.
Conclusion
Crisis is an inevitable event to which all the organizations are exposed. However, should
it occur, the management should do everything within its capacity to manage it well. The abrupt
nature of crisis mans that it can neither be prevented nor predicted. However, the fortunate thing
is that whenever a crisis erupts, the organization can manage it. Crisis management is, therefore,
the strategies that are used to rectify the negative effects of a crisis in an organization. One of the
most effective crisis management strategies is called crisis communication. Crisis
communication is the public relations communication in which the organization engages during a
crisis.
References

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Coombs, W.T., 2015. The value of communication during a crisis: Insights from strategic
communication research. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.141-148.
Coombs, W.T., 2018. Crisis Communication: The Best Evidence from Research. In The
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Einwiller, S.A., Laufer, D. & Ruppel, C., 2017. Believe me, I am one of you! The role of
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Frandsen, F. & Johansen, W., 2016. Organizational crisis communication: A multivocal
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Sadri, A.M., Hasan, S., Ukkusuri, S.V. & Cebrian, M., 2018. Crisis communication patterns in
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Schwarz, A., Seeger, M.W. & Auer, C. eds., 2016. The handbook of international crisis
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