Crisis, is one of the most fearful words, right? We don’t want crises in our life and business, but still, most people face crises at some point in their life as well business.
So, the question is how to avoid and handle the crisis if it is happening in your business.
The reason behind a crisis can be anything and it’s not necessary that the crisis is happening because of the fault of the organization but there may be some uncontrollable factors. Situational crisis communication theory will help you in understanding the type of crisis and crisis management planning will help you in handling the crisis carefully.
Let’s get started with an understanding of crisis!
What is a Crisis?
Situational Crisis Communication Theory was given by Timothy Coombs, he described the crisis as a negative circumstance.
A crisis is a negative circumstance that can have negative consequences for an organization and its stakeholders such as employees, customers, and investors if it is not handled with care.
To overcome the crisis we need to first identify it and then need to communicate properly with our audiences.
First, let’s discuss the types of crises!
Types of Crisis
Crisis are being classified on the basis of cause and effect. On the basis of what caused the crisis and what the effects of the crisis on a particular organisation would be, determine the type of crisis an organisation is facing.
The developer of situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) Timothy Coombs divided crises into three types; Victim, Accidental and Preventable. But we’re going to discuss other types of crises also, one thing more to bring to attention, one crisis can overlap with other.
Victim Crisis
In the victim crisis, the victim of the situation is the organization itself. The cause of the victim crisis can be any rumour or natural disaster. No one can prevent a victim crisis, as there’s no way of preventing a natural event that can destroy the physical infrastructure of the organization.
As the company isn’t responsible for the crisis but instead a victim itself, there’s no significant threat to the reputation of the company because of the victim crisis.
Accidental Crisis
An accidental crisis happens when the organization is at fault for the accident. The organization didn’t want to cause the crisis intentionally but it took place.
The cause of an accidental crisis can be any product or service failure or any allegations from the consumers. As the brands are at fault in this crisis so accidental crises can cause significant damage to the reputation of the organization.
It’s better to address these crises as soon as possible and get over them.
Preventable Crisis
These crises are caused when a brand takes risks for the betterment and it causes the crisis. The cause of these crises can be any fundraising campaign that went sideways and the company couldn’t fulfil the promises made during the campaign.
These types of crises are so much fatal and can cause serious damage to the brand’s reputation. The situational crisis communication theory is made to deal with these types of crises in a smooth way.
We’ve discussed the main crises mentioned by Timothy Coombs in his situational crisis communication theory, now we’re going to discuss some more crises;
Financial Crisis
Any company face a financial crisis when it faces a significant amount of drop in demand for the company’s products and services. The result is company loses its value in the market and the brand has to look for new sources for generating a good amount of long-term income.
Natural Crisis
Natural crises are difficult to see coming. Before starting any infrastructure, you need to consider all the natural reports about the particular place for the offices. Always build workspaces suitable for all weather crises.
Organizational Crisis
Organizational crises happen when brands start thinking about their own profit instead of focusing on consumers’ needs and user experience. Sometimes it also happens because of the creation of organizational silos i.e. lack of communication between different marketing teams.
Personnel Crisis
A Personnel crisis is caused by the misconduct of a person associated with a brand. To avoid these type of crises the company need to explain the work ethics and mould employees according to the culture of the organization. When the employees will be aligned with the vision and mission of the company they’ll less likely to want to be involved in any unethical or illegal things.
Technological Crisis
Technological crises are because by server failure or issues in the technical system of the organization. Many big companies such as GoDaddy have already faced this crisis. To avoid and prevent this crisis you need to have an excellent technical team on board. So, first, they’ll avoid these types of crises and if anything happens with the system, they’ll be able to remedy the situation in no time.
Social Media Crisis
Discussing errors in judgements or service issues on social media are considered social media crises as sometimes they may escalate into a large crisis.
As we all know social media is a platform where consumers share their opinions and thoughts about something with their friends and families, and it’s also a place where they bring out their frustrations on the brand after facing irregularities in their services or products. This is the reason social media is considered a social listening tool.
So handle your consumers, solve their queries and build a big family of happy consumers!
We’ve discussed all the types of crises including the three main crises described by Timothy Coombs in SCCT.
Now let’s move ahead and discuss what a situational crisis is.
What is a situational crisis?
All the crises that are unexpected, uncontrollable and damageable are considered situational crises. As situational crises pose threats to the reputation of the business, they need to be taken care of as soon as possible and with care.
To handle the situational crisis we need to communicate with the audience. For quick and improved communication situational crisis communicational theory was created.
All the above-mentioned crises are considered situational crises but the 3 are main and most important crises that are victim crisis, accidental crisis, and preventable crisis.
Situational crises can be caused by many issues such as unexpected events, extreme weather events, supply chain issues, defective products, drop and hype in demands, misconduct of employees or management, mishandled customer complaints etc.
So, avoid these things and no crises will happen, but what if we’re unable to avoid them?
Then, the solution is situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), now we’ll understand it deeply.
What is situational crisis communication theory?
Situational crisis communication theory is a principle that tells brands how they should respond to a crisis. Response strategies have been described in the SCCT and these response strategies guide brands to communicate quickly and appropriately with audiences to handle a crisis.
There are 4 types of crisis response communication strategies that are Bolster, Deny, Diminish and Rebuild.
These strategies will light your path in times of crisis by showing you the steps for resolving the crisis as quickly and appropriately as possible.
Let’s discuss all of the strategies one by one;
Bolster
Do you like assets? Everyone wants to have assets and bolstering strategy represents the organization as an asset to its stakeholders.
It’s a prominent strategy to be used when a brand is facing a victim crisis. Whenever the brand starts facing a victim crisis, with the help of this strategy you can make your consumers keep firm faith in your organization by appreciating their loyalty and reminding their positive past experiences with the brand.
One more thing to keep in mind, you can use this strategy to handle any type of crisis by combining it with other strategies.
Deny
Is there any moment in your life when you’re being accused of something without any fault, what was your reaction then?
You definitely have resisted the accusations and denied them. Why, because you know you’ve not done any mistake.
You can use this method of denial when your organization is facing some false and invalid accusations or rumours that are harmful.
In this situation, you can confront the accusers claiming that you’re not responsible for anything that is happening that there is no crisis or another party should be blamed for this.
Confronting the accusers will stop the escalation of the crisis but it’ll only work only when your organization is truly at no fault for the situation and save you from rebuilding the relationship with your consumers.
Diminish
If the company is also responsible at some places for the crisis then using the diminish strategy will lower the responsibility of the organization.
This strategy looks a little bit defensive or negligent because the company justify and offers excuses for the actions they’ve taken. That’s why it also should frequently be used in victim crises where a company is not at fault.
It can also be useful in accidental crises only if the company doesn’t have any past crisis history and has had a positive experience with consumers.
Rebuild
The last strategy in situational crisis communication theory is rebuilding. This is best suitable for accidental and preventable crises where the reputation of the company has been severely damaged.
In this strategy, the company first redeem its reputation and then rebuild its relationships with stakeholders.
There’re three steps that are followed in rebuilding strategy;
- Taking responsibility for the crisis
- Apologizing for the actions
- Offering appropriate compensation to the users affected by the outcome of the crisis
It’s also used when the brand has faced similar crises in the past. So, use it to remove negative reputation from the market in the situation of accidental and preventable crises.
We’ve discussed the situational crisis communication theory and 4 response communication strategies to deal with crises.
Now, let’s have a look at the steps for proper use of the SCCT for crises!
Steps for Efficiently Using Situational Crisis Communication Theory
Every business should have a crisis management plan in place so that when they need it they can execute it quickly and appropriately.
Quick and appropriate decision matters so much in a crisis because if the decision wouldn’t quick then it’d be difficult to repair the damages and if the decision wouldn’t appropriate it’d worsen the situation.
You may follow the following steps to build a crisis management plan for your business and always keep it updated with the latest innovations;
Understand and Identify the Crisis
If you’ve started facing a crisis then you first need to categorize it. Identify which type of crisis you’re facing. We know that there are 3 main crises that are victim, accidental, and preventable and so many complementary crises.
Knowing the crisis will help you in building your public communication strategy for different platforms such as a notice on the website, addressing on social media, sending a press release, and organizing a seminar and press conference.
Decide Whom You Want To Address
It depends on you whom you want to address first your stakeholders, employees, consumers or the public.
Deciding will help you in communicating properly and convey the message quickly and appropriately as possible.
Identify Your Strategy and Goal
We’ve discussed four strategies that are bolster, deny, diminish and rebuild in the situational crisis communication theory. You need to identify on the basis of the crisis which strategy is going to work for your brand.
Alongside this, you need to define the goals you want to achieve by implementing those strategies. If we have already defined the goals we can measure the success of the situational crisis communication theory campaigns.
Take suggestions from your employees and trusted consultants
Taking suggestions from your employees and trusted consultants can show you a better path to overcome the crisis in a way you can never think of.
Brainstorm with the people who’ve dealt with similar crises having better analytical skills and insights or consultants who have had similar experiences in crisis management.
This will help you in building proper communication messaging with methods of proper execution of the plan.
Send E-mail to all associated consumers
As we’ve determined communication strategy and messaging, it’s time to send an email to all the associated consumers with the crisis that will show consumers your spontaneity in solving the crisis.
They’ll be aware of the efforts you’re putting to overcome the crisis, and they’ll feel satisfied and fearless that it’ll get over soon.
You can also provide the details of your support team for any questions the consumers want to ask the brand related to the crisis.
Launch a Press Conference and Press Release
Launching a press conference and publishing a press release will make your consumers aware of the real situations the brand is facing instead of just rumours.
You can include every small and significant detail in the press conference and press release. Include the reason behind the crisis, what is the crisis, how you’re dealing with the crisis, and how much time will it take to solve the problem or compensations if you’re offering.
Put a Notice on All Marketing Platforms of the Brand such as Social Media and the Website
Putting a notice on social media platforms and websites will make aware of your existing and previous consumers about the situation.
Put a clear message about the crisis and the steps you’ve taken to deal with it. You can also mention the compensation offered to all the affected consumers.
I hope we’ve covered everything to deal with the situational crises. Now, let’s have a look at the benefits of situational crisis communication theory and crisis management plans.
Benefits of SCCT and Situational Crisis Management Plan
If you’ve already determined a situational crisis management plan then you’ll be able to ensure a smoother and quick crisis response.
Having a plan in place can also save you a lot of time and provide peace of mind in times of crisis. Here are some of the major benefits SCCT can provide to your organization;
- Having a management plan beforehand
- Understanding the situation and types of crisis
- Quick and Appropriate response in no time
- Saving time and providing peace of mind by having a management plan
- Smooth communication through the right marketing platforms
- Don’t let you panic in times of crisis
- Offering apologizes and compensation to only targeted and affected audiences
Counting the benefits of situational crisis communication theory, there’s a lot, right? You can also get these benefits in times of crisis if you’ve already followed situational crisis communication theory and built a management plan for times of crisis.
Now, let’s wrap up this blog!
Conclusion
Most crises are unexpected and they can make a lot of damage to the brand’s infrastructure and reputation if not dealt with properly. To handle the crisis quick, well and professionally a situational crisis communication theory was developed that provides a great chance of recovering from the crisis in no time and with fewer efforts.
Situational crisis communication theory is also referred to as SCCT and was developed by Timothy Coombs to handle the crisis and build a quick and appropriate response plan and messaging.
You can properly communicate and convey your messages with the help of SCCT if your business is facing such situations.
Even some of the big brands grew stronger from the crises by properly dealing with them, so have a valuable crisis management strategy.
Are you going to build a crisis management plan for your brand? Please do let us know in the comment section what thoughts are coming to your mind about your brand by reading this article!
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