Crisis and issues management
Our professionally accredited, experienced team can support clients through difficult times, where maintaining your reputation and the value of your project is crucial.
Maintaining a positive reputation in today’s volatile climate isn’t easy. Strong opinions can be formed and shared in a heartbeat, with online conversations moving at lightning speed.
We say to clients that managing issues proactively and swiftly is the best way to prevent crises from happening and causing real and lasting damage to an organisation.
High-profile crises are often made worse when organisations fail to acknowledge the issue, listen properly or communicate openly. Silence, defensiveness or delay can quickly erode trust. In trying to cover the crisis up, they build up public resentment until anger and opposition overwhelms them. Â Â
Sometimes, though, preparedness isn’t enough on its own. Unexpected events can close businesses, halt services and place leadership teams under tremendous strain. How organisations respond to those events in the moment can make the difference between recovery and lasting, and even terminal, damage. Â
Our professionally accredited, senior, ethical team can help organisations address issues and respond to crises with calmness and clarity.
Working together to tackle problems head on
Our expert team can help you respond in ways that protect your reputation and the long-term value of your brand or project.
When things go wrong, we can provide a complete crisis support package, focusing on the issue, reassuring the public and setting out a credible response to maintain your reputational capital.
All crises are different and present fresh challenges around people, place and culture to navigate. But the principles underpinning our support for clients hold true for any work we take on for clients, whether as retained press office support or a standalone project.
Our team, which includes accredited PR professionals and qualified senior journalists, will work to understand the issue and any underpinning factors as quickly as possible. This requires openness and willingness to share all details.
We will then agree messaging, an outreach approach, media and public engagement, social media monitoring and responses. Â
Stakeholders and staff are kept updated, while communications colleagues are supported to maintain resilience.
We share some tips here about the steps we advocate for clients when a crisis or issue breaks.
Responding proactively and responsibly
As trusted communicators, our team has deep experience of helping clients respond well to challenging situations.
We were proud to support Underfall Yard’s immediate community and media response to the arson attack that destroyed boat building businesses on Bristol harbourside. Our support included advice to trustees during the police investigation, media handling and support as the criminal case progressed through the courts.
Over time, by being clear, consistent and committed to the yard’s recovery, the trust has built public support for its restoration project as visitors and businesses returned to the yard. Â
Alongside this, we also have experience of managing communications around protests, industrial disputes and high-profile complaints against organisations.
In all these cases, we only proceed when a client agrees to answer all our questions and is prepared to hear our advice. We never compromise on ethical standards or try to spin our way out of a crisis.
Our support includes:
- Senior advisory, working with legal and compliance teams.
- Reactive and proactive press office support.
- Preparing and reviewing crisis and issues management strategies.
- Messaging creation and delivery.
- Stakeholder mapping and engagement.
Clients who retain us to support their PR or engagement activity often benefit from this support as part of the package we offer them. We can provide dedicated crisis management support, subject to agreement on the terms of engagement.
Get in touch
If your organisation is preparing for a difficult issue or responding to one now, contact us for an initial discussion.
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