Crisis Communications Plan
Step 1: Create Your Team
A designated team made up of people with clearly defined roles gives you the best ability to manage any situation that arises.
The speed, clarity, and transparency of your communications will dictate whether you contain the issue or multiply the damage. Creating a crisis communications team is Step 1 in preparing your organization to do just that.
Why a Crisis Response Team is Essential
By creating a crisis communications team, you establish a process for assessing situations as they arise, making decisions, and issuing responses.
This team becomes the mechanism that keeps communications controlled and consistent, especially when multiple stakeholders, like your employees, customers, partners, and the media are watching closely.
A crisis communications team prepares your organization for the unpredictable. Every situation is unique, so having a team accountable for anticipating, preparing for and handling crises ensures your company can react quickly to any scenario.
Without a prepared team, you can expect the opposite; slow responses, disjointed communication and reactive decision-making.
How to Establish Your Crisis Team
Select Key Team Members
Choose a mix of senior leaders and staff who:
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understand the business and the potential risks,
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can remain calm under pressure
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can communicate clearly, and that
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represent each area of the business.
The crisis team must have the full backing and involvement of senior executives in your organization who support the work of the team and are responsible for making crucial decisions during a crisis.
Define Roles and Responsibilities
Clearly define each team member’s role to prevent confusion during a crisis. Here is a list of important roles to fill:
a) Crisis Communications Manager: Appoint an experienced and skilled person to act as crisis communications director or manager. This person will be the team leader and the primary point of contact for executive leadership and all crisis communication efforts.
b) Spokesperson: Designate one or more official spokespeople and train them to deliver consistent and accurate messages to the media and the public. They should be comfortable speaking in front of the camera and have excellent communication skills. The more serious the incident/crisis, the more senior this person should be.
c) Media Relations Specialist: Assign an individual to build relationships with journalists, handle media inquiries, and facilitate interviews and press conferences.
d) Social Media Manager: Appoint one person to monitor online conversations, manage the organization's social media accounts, and ensure the dissemination of accurate information in real-time.
e) Stakeholder Communications: Designate the specific individual(s) responsible for communicating with each stakeholder group (such as major partners), ensuring that internal messaging is aligned with external communication efforts.
f) Establish a Chain of Command: Define the decision-making hierarchy for approving messages. Document escalation procedures to ensure timely and accurate responses.
Other Considerations:
Legal Counsel: Involve legal counsel to provide guidance on potential liabilities, compliance with regulations, and the handling of sensitive legal issues. But use caution as good legal advice actually harm your brand in a crisis if you are not careful!
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IT and Technical Support: Ensure that you have IT and technical support in place to manage communication channels, websites, and to deal with any technical issues that may arise during the crisis.
Step 2: Define Your Guiding Principles
Just as your mission, vision and values provide a north star for the day-to-day decision making of your people, it’s important to articulate -in advance- how your organization intends to conduct itself while under pressure.
Effective crisis communications requires that you predetermine a clear, shared understanding of how the members of your organization will interact with their stakeholders and the media at a time of high stress, when there is little time for contemplation and decisions must be made quickly.
If you haven’t clearly established your guiding principles, there’s a higher risk of making inconsistent or reactionary choices, creating more confusion, undermining your credibility, and losing control of the narrative.
The Risks of an Undefined Crisis Response
Without established and agreed upon principles, a crisis can escalate quickly. People may contradict each other publicly, causing confusion or misinformation. Leadership may appear indecisive or evasive. Legal missteps may occur if there is uncertainty about how much information to release.
Not having a clear and unified understanding of how your organization will conduct itself during a crisis can also make you overly reactive, addressing immediate fires without looking at the broader picture. As well, failing to act ethically or empathetically can lead to long-lasting reputational damage that’s difficult to repair, sometimes even sparking additional crises.
Determining Your Guiding Principles
Core Values
Begin by reflecting on your organization’s mission and core values. What do you stand for? What are the ethical non-negotiables in your operations? These values should be your foundation.
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Truth
Commit to honesty. To communicate truthfully and transparently at all times. Your customers, staff and partners will understand a mistake, accident, or poor judgment but they will not forgive any attempt – real or perceived – to cover up specific actions.
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Speed
When a crisis erupts, swift, meaningful communication is critical. Your reputation is at stake.
Delayed responses will be interpreted as purposeful disregard by your organization.  At best, it is seen as incompetent.
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Respect the Role of the Media
Media are not the enemy. They have a job to do. Ensure that every member of the team and executive comprehend that. The media has direct access to the audiences you need to reach, and every journalist serves a different audience. Give them equal and respectful treatment.
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Emphasize Empathy and Safety
Crises will impact people directly. Prioritize the safety of your staff, partners and customers.
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Defining and agreeing on your guiding principles in advance will facilitate a more confident, consistent, and effective response in any crisis. This preparation is invaluable, as it allows leaders to focus on addressing the situation rather than scrambling to determine the right course of action under pressure.
Step 3: Know Your Audience
In any crisis your customers, staff, partners and the media are watching your response closely, and each have different needs.
Employees may worry about job security and safety, customers about service continuity, partners about collateral reputational damage and the media will want answers quickly.
When the stakes are high, a “one-size-fits-all” approach to communicating will make you appear tone deaf, alienating people and likely prolonging the crisis and its damage.
Take the time to identify and define the unique needs of each group that is important to you.
Targeted and personalized messaging will reassure each group that you are aware of their concerns and committed to addressing them.
Identifying Your Key Audiences
Brainstorm Potential Stakeholders
You know your company best. Start by listing all groups that interact with your organization or are impacted by its operations such as employees, customers, partners, investors, suppliers, media, regulators, and the general public. For some organizations, it may also include local communities, non-profit partners, or specific industry groups.
Segment and Prioritize Stakeholders
Once identified, segment stakeholders based on their relationship to your organization. Prioritize these groups according to the degree to which they are affected by the crisis or their influence on your reputation.
Map Specific Concerns for Each Group
Consider what each group may need or want to know in the event of a crisis. Employees may need clarity about workplace safety or job security. Customers will likely seek information on product safety or availability. Investors want to understand the financial impact. Identifying these needs helps in crafting messages that resonate.
Tailor Your Communication Approach
Determine the best channel to reach each group and consider the tone of each message.
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Email: Use for direct, detailed messages to employees, partners, or customers.
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Social Media: Ideal for quick updates and reaching a broad audience. Monitor these platforms closely, as they are prone to rapid feedback and can fuel misinformation if not managed well.
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Media Releases: For official statements aimed at media outlets and the public. A media release should be detailed, with key points clearly outlined.
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Internal Meetings: Keep employees informed with regular briefings, ensuring they understand the situation and know what to communicate externally, if necessary.
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Website Updates: Use your website for in-depth updates and FAQs. It’s a trusted source that can serve as a central hub for information, reducing calls and emails for more details.
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Adapt Channels: Crises can be unpredictable, and communication needs can change rapidly. Be ready to adjust your approach if necessary, such as moving to live updates on social media or a live video briefing for fast-moving events. For example, a company facing an unfolding event, like a data breach, may need to provide frequent updates across all channels to prevent misinformation.
Reevaluate Regularly
Review and update your audience list periodically, especially as your organization grows or changes. New partnerships, markets, or stakeholder groups may emerge over time, and you want to ensure no one is overlooked in future crises.
By identifying key audiences and their unique concerns, you move from sufficient to exceptional in providing relevant, timely information showing them you value their support and are committed to transparency and resolution.
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Step 4: Your Response Playbook
You now have a team, guiding principles and your key stakeholders. Who does what and when?
A structured protocol and response flowchart allows everyone to know their role and the necessary steps to manage the crisis effectively.
During high-stress moments, this protocol brings order and will ensure that responses are consistent, swift, and well-coordinated. Without it, you risk delayed responses, miscommunication, and inconsistent messaging—factors that can make the crisis worse and harm the organization’s reputation.
Teams need to act quickly but thoughtfully, and a protocol provides the structure to do so. It establishes a process for assessing the situation, engaging the crisis team, escalating issues, and communicating.
This protocol is especially important because it ensures that all team members know their responsibilities, have clear lines of communication, and can make informed decisions in the heat of the moment.
You do not want people acting independently, without adequate information, releasing inconsistent or incorrect messaging.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Crisis Communication Protocol
When an incident occurs, someone outside the crisis comms team will most likely be the first on the scene.
They need to know the basics of assessing a situation and the process for notifying their supervisor or the crisis team.
1. Determine Level of Significance
Organizations can be too quick to deem something a crisis, which leads to panic and oftentimes mismanagement.
While in each case you should do what is right to rectify or resolve a situation, the level of significance will impact the nature and intensity of your communications response.
The first step is to determine whether the situation is an Issue, an Incident, or a Crisis to guide decision making.
Issue:
These are minor, manageable problems that can typically be handled within the department or team. Generally, they do not have serious implications. i.e., Single customer affected. In this case the relevant person can usually resolve the situation.
Incident:
More serious events that require cross-departmental coordination but do not pose a severe, immediate threat to your reputation or core operations. Could have moderate implications. i.e. Product malfunction.
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Local media call for comment.
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Potential for local and/or national coverage.
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Multiple customers impacted.
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Multiple posts on social media platforms include protest commentary.
Crisis:
Severe events that could significantly harm the organization’s operations, reputation, or stakeholder relationships. Examples include major data breaches, large-scale recalls, or executive misconduct. Also, any incident where:
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Media involvement is high.
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Story has been picked up (or has potential to be picked up) by national media (i.e. “news of the day”).
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Issue has gone/may go viral on social media channels.
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Incident with impact on brand at regional, national, or global level (regardless of media involvement).
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2. Convene Team
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To escalate, relevant person convenes team.
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As part of your crisis response planning, predetermine meeting locations (on site and off) and communication channels for the team (Teams, Zoom, WhatsApp, etc.)
3. Gather and Assess Facts
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What happened?
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Where?
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When did we know of the problem?
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What are we doing about it?
4. Act & Communicate
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Develop key messages.
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Appoint spokesperson.
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Contact stakeholders
Step 5: Being Ready for the Media
Effective media management is crucial for maintaining your organization’s credibility and controlling the narrative. Here are the steps to having a thorough system in place:
Effective Media Management
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1. Set up a clear process for managing media inquiries.
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Centralize Communications - Direct all media inquiries to a central point. Create and forward/funnel all requests through one email address (e.g. media@yourcompany.ca). Do not have multiple points of contact or individuals connecting with media.
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Acknowledge Inquiries Promptly - Respond quickly to acknowledge media inquiries, even if you don’t have all the information yet. Provide a timeline for when updates or additional information will be shared.
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Maintain a log of all media contact and coverage.
2. Identify and Train Spokespeople
Designate primary and backup spokespersons who will represent the organization publicly. Choose individuals who are clear communicators, calm under pressure, and have a deep understanding of the organization’s values and crisis management goals.
Once selected, conduct professional media training for them and your CEO. This is an invaluable step and will cover such things as:
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a) Understanding the media: Including deadlines, different platforms and common journalist techniques.
b) Mock Interviews: To practice listening carefully and responding thoughtfully (including challenging or hostile questions to build resilience), techniques for bridging back to key messages, distilling complex ideas into easy-to-understand language and using short, impactful statements that are likely to be quoted in media coverage.
c) Non-Verbal Communication: Body language, eye contact, facial expressions, and posture. Techniques for appearing confident and calm, even under stress.
d) Crisis-Specific Techniques: Strategies for maintaining composure in high-pressure situations, and delivering bad news with empathy and transparency.
3. Prepare Q&A Documents
Anticipate likely questions from the media and create Q&A documents for your spokesperson to reference. These should include key facts, possible inquiries, and suggested responses. Q&A preparation allows you to prepare for the most difficult questions, reduces the risk of being caught off-guard and ensures that responses are consistent and accurate.
4. Develop Core Messaging Templates
There are four statement types involved in most crisis scenarios.
Holding Statements: Brief, pre-prepared responses that can be quickly released when a crisis first unfolds, providing an acknowledgement of the situation and giving you time to gather more details.
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Core Statement: The message that provides verified facts, and communicates key actions being taken. It should reflect your values and be the basis for all subsequent communications.
Update Statement: Provides any new information as the situation evolves, highlighting progress in resolving the situation and addressing stakeholder concerns.
Closure Statement: Communicates the resolution of the crisis, actions taken, and lessons learned. Express gratitude for stakeholders' patience and support.
To develop your key messages, identify the core issues and concerns your stakeholders might have and address them directly. Focus on clarity, making sure to keep messages straightforward, and accountability by acknowledging any responsibility the organization has in the situation and, if applicable, expressing regret or empathy for those affected.
5. Create a Crisis Communications Toolkit
As part of your plan, create pre-approved templates for press releases, FAQs, and statements. Include contact lists of key media outlets, journalists, and stakeholders.
6. Monitor Media and Social Media
Stay informed of what the media and the public are saying about the crisis. Real-time monitoring allows the organization to correct misinformation quickly, respond to public sentiment, and adjust your messaging as needed.
Step 6: Conduct an Issues Audit
No one knows your business better than you and you’ve no doubt spent time worrying about the “what-if’s” that could disrupt it.
Empower yourself and your team by brainstorming these possible threats, discussing them and preparing your responses. This will allow you to act with speed and confidence when it becomes real.
It also trains you in the skill of differentiating between issues, incidents, and crises as described in Step 4.
Conducting an Issues Audit
1. Assemble a Cross-Functional Group for Brainstorm Session
Start by gathering a team from different departments, including senior management. Each will have unique insights into risks ensuring a 360-degree view of potential issues.
Take a “no-bad-ideas” approach in the meeting, encouraging open discussion and a wide-ranging approach to uncover both typical and unexpected issues. Ask "What events could disrupt operations?" "What issues could impact our reputation?" and "What common problems do similar organizations face?"
End your session with a comprehensive list of your potential issues.
2. Define and Categorize Potential Events
Once you have your list of potential issues, categorize each as an “Issue,” “Incident,” or “Crisis” to understand its significance.
3. Develop Response Plan
This is when you have the luxury of time to discuss and develop your responses in a risk-free environment.
For each of your identified risks, outline how you would respond and draft an action plan. For crises, conduct simulations or scenario planning to practice and refine responses.
Draft key messages and holding statements and Q&A for each. Anticipate the most challenging questions and prepare well-thought-out responses.
Some response plans may require simple protocols, such as customer service scripts. Incidents may need more detailed response plans, including escalation points and communication guidelines. Crises will require more thorough preparation.
4. Review and Update Regularly
An issues audit is not a one-time activity. Regularly revisit and update it to reflect new risks, industry changes, and organizational growth. This keeps the organization agile, ready to address emerging threats effectively.
Step 7: Training
Your plan only works if people know how to use it.
Employees play a critical role in crisis response because they are often the first point of contact for customers or the public.
Employees who are informed, prepared, and aligned with the crisis plan contribute to a stronger, faster response. Regular testing and discussion will keep the plan alive in the minds of your people.
Training and Preparing Employees
1. Employee Training: Start by sharing the basic components of the crisis management plan with employees, explaining why it’s important, how it works, the role they play, and how it will help protect the organization. Discuss the plan periodically in staff meetings, conduct tabletop exercises to practice the plan, and include it in onboarding materials for new hires.
2. Roles & Responsibilities: For employees with designated roles in the crisis plan but outside the Crisis Team (e.g., department heads or managers), provide more detailed training. Outline their responsibilities, the steps they should take during a crisis, and any resources they may need. Conduct scenario-based training to familiarize them with different crisis situations and their required actions.
3. Media Discipline: Ensure employees understand how important it is to handle the media competently including a central point for inquiries and refraining from discussing the crisis themselves. Help them by providing simple scripts, speaking points or guidelines on how to deal with customers and partners and to politely redirect any media inquiries they might receive.
4. Internal Communications: Keep employees informed during a crisis by sharing regular internal updates. Develop a resource hub with crisis communication protocols and FAQs, so they know where to turn for information and instructions.
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Test and Update the Crisis Plan
Testing and updating the crisis plan keeps it relevant and creates a muscle memory that will prove invaluable in a real situation. Regular simulations help identify weaknesses, build confidence, and refine response protocols, while periodic reviews allow you to adjust for new risks and operational changes. Here’s a simple approach:
1. Tabletop Simulations: These are engaging exercises that allow the crisis team and relevant employees to practice their roles in a controlled setting. Have a team member describe a realistic, detailed scenario to the group and have them respond, going through each step, from identification of the incident to public communication. This is a lively and worthwhile agenda item for weekly meetings.
2. Debrief: After each simulation, discuss what went well and what could be improved. Encourage honest feedback and any gaps in your plan will emerge such as unclear roles, slow response times, or ineffective communication channels.
3. Update the Plan: Based on the debrief, make any necessary updates to the crisis plan like clarifying roles, revising notification processes or communication channels. Communicate changes to all relevant team members and staff and retrain where needed.
4. Schedule Regular Plan Reviews: This need not be an overly time-consuming step. Risks, resources and people change over time, so it’s wise to review the crisis plan quarterly and modify as needed. A formal review once a year or after any significant organizational changes is also prudent and should include an audit of any new risks.
Your people want their organization to respond well in difficult times and they want to do their part to help. Not only will this help in the immediate moments of a crisis, but the process of preparation will help develop long-term trust and credibility with your people.