5 Crisis Management Questions You Absolutely Need to Answer

by Melissa Agnes

1. What is the difference between an issue and a crisis; how do each apply to your organization; and if/when faced with either one, does your frontline know how to react, how to respond and/or how to escalate the situation internally?
2. Where do each of your different stakeholder groups “hangout” online, and are you prepared to leverage those channels and platforms as needed in a crisis?
3. Are you, your frontline and/or your crisis team able and empowered to respond to a negative issue or a crisis within 15 minutes from it developing an online presence?
4. Does your team understand how to utilize the search engines to help amplify and enhance your organization’s crisis management?
5. Have you incorporated social media, the search engines and your organization’s online reputation management into your corporate crisis management plan?

If you’ve answered “no” or “I’m not sure” to any of the above questions, you’re not alone. However, just because you aren’t alone doesn’t mean that you aren’t uniquely at risk. Although there are so many more questions that I could’ve added to this list, my mission is not to scare you but rather to help inspire some thought and, hopefully, some action.

Risks that threaten the good name of your organization are lingering around every corner

The goal is not to fear these risks but to identify them, assess them and then be ready for them. By answering the above 5 questions you should have a good idea of whether or not your organization and your teams are ready. I hope that they are. However, if they’re not, they can be. All it takes is the decision to do something about it.