Why planning ahead for a B2B public relations crisis matters
Rumor or truth, a public relations crisis has the potential to do irreversible damage to your B2B brand. Since no business is immune to the possibility – and the fallout – of a crisis, the best way for any company to be prepared is simple: have a crisis response plan. If your B2B company doesn’t have a plan, working with a B2B public relations partner like Ripley PR to create your crisis response plan can alleviate the stress of having to create a response to a crisis situation.
Consider what constitutes a crisis for your B2B company. According to Merriam-Webster, the simple definition of a crisis is “a difficult or dangerous situation that needs serious attention.” Translated into the world of B2B public relations, a crisis is a difficult or dangerous situation in the form of an unexpected threat to your organization that requires serious attention to be overcome quickly.
When an unexpected threat endangers your business, the last thing you want to do is succumb too quickly to the urgency of the situation and act without having a definitive plan of action in place. This is what causes many companies to panic and subsequently make mistakes in their crisis response. While it can be difficult to plan for specific crises, you can have a system in place that will allow you and your team to identify and communicate the truth while managing potential outcomes of the crisis on a unified front.
Sometimes you must act with an amount of uncertainty. Keep in mind, though, your main goal in a crisis is to solve the problem, and your ability to cohesively act with conviction in solving that problem can eliminate poor communication during and after a crisis. The worst thing you can do is say one thing, only to have to turn around when new information comes to light and backtrack. Having a plan in place ensures that you are able to act decisively to an emerging crisis before critics (or worse, your competitors) can fuel the fire.
No business is immune to a crisis, and it’s not a matter of “if” one will happen, it’s a matter of “when” it will happen. If you don’t have a crisis response plan in place, your risk of being caught unprepared in the event of a crisis can grow exponentially each day. At Ripley PR, we’ve been helping B2B companies prepare for a variety of crisis situations through our B2B public relations programs. Through our expert planning and business executive training programs, we can help your company stay calm and be prepared to respond in the event of an unexpected crisis.
