Does your Brand Need a Crisis Triage Plan?

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Kathleen Carpenter

The 2010 Winter Olympics are over. This year was filled with memorable moments and a record number of Olympic Medals. Above that there was another standout moment. That moment was one truly memorable commercial, The Nike Human Chain. The commercial is a minute of pure inspiration with one simple message: Learning how to fall and get back up is the centerpiece of athletic greatness. And that lesson is indeed one of the most important lessons that today’s business crisis management teams need to master.  The recent allegations made by Floyd Landis, coupled with recovery from a nasty crash at the Tour of California, Lance Armstrong has proven himself to be an authentic Zen Master of Crisis Triage.


 

With a plethora of social media, real time information flow, it's a whole new reputation management game. This is vividly illustrated by the unraveling of the Toyota brand as well as the rapid fall of Tiger Woods.

Crisis management experts' standard advice is that the key to a successful handling of a crisis is preparing beforehand to respond early and take control of your story. In some cases, however, a company that lacks major crisis experience or has simply taken the "ostrich approach" in the early stages of a crisis and then things explode. At that point the hawks are circling, the blogosphere is buzzing, and perhaps the company is even facing criminal liability. What any business needs at that point is a Crisis Triage Plan. And that plan needs to be an agile and adaptive enterprise between executive management and a trusted team to manage the legal, public relations and social networksphere aspects of the crisis.

Where does the triage team start?

Triage usually starts with determining the greatest need at the immediate time that will stop damage from escalating. The starting point of Crisis Triage is to start taking responsibility in a credible and authentic way and stop hiding. Stop hiding documents that will eventually be revealed anyway. Stop hiding the fact that the Company may not have all the answers. The legal team is a critical part of the team, but don't let the message sound like it was written by a lawyer or a spin doctor. Create a simple message and get that message out. And that's just the start. "Everybody Get's Knocked Down, but How Quick are your Going to Get Up?

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Calling For YELP: How to Handle a Negative Review of Your Brand on The Internet

Posted on March 2, 2010 by Kathleen Carpenter

Your company has been in business for two decades. One day you read a very negative review of your company on Yelp. Yelp is a fast-growing online review website whose stated mission is to make the world a better place by helping people to connect with great local businesses. However, the negative review of your company also contains damaging false and defamatory information, that could destroy a reputation that took you two decades to build. What to do? Suddenly just one disgruntled customer has a cyber megaphone.

Can you write Yelp and ask them to take the review down?

Well, you may attempt that route, but you are unlikely to have Yelp remove a review at your request. Part of the reason for this is that Yelp has come under fire recently for allegedly manipulating reviews when customers advertise on Yelp (removing negative reviews). These allegations are addressed in Yelp’s blog "Additional thoughts on last week's lawsuit, or how a Conspiracy Theory is Born.” Yelp has an informational blog that assists business owners in maintaining their online Yelp identity – allowing businesses to publicly post a business description, announce special offers, message customers, add photos, track traffic to your Yelp site and more.

In the case of a very disgruntled customer who took enough time to post a negative review, you need to assess the best and quickest course of action necessary to obtain retraction of the false and defamatory information. You must also proceed with caution, as you risk putting gasoline on a fire if you further inflame the customer.

For example, last year, a resident of an apartment owned by a Chicago developer complained on Twitter about mold in her unit and was immediately sued by the developer. The developer’s press release in response stated, “the company sues first and ask questions later.” Utilizing this tactic may undermine your company's reputation, whether on-line of off-line.

In a recent case, on behalf of a business I was successful in reaching out to a customer that posted a negative Yelp review and having the review taken down, without a lawsuit. Quick tips: In addition to customer satisfaction, consider joining the major social networks with a business membership and take advantage of the benefits. It should also be a part of your company's regular practice to monitor your online reputation and perhaps communicate with the irate customer that slipped through the cracks. Start monitoring now. Google is still free.

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