Running head: CRISIS COMMUNICATION 1

Crisis Communication

BN160695

Westcliff University

Managerial Communication

Umes Shrestha

November 20, 2017

Abstract

The paper highlights on the real life crisis in an organization and how can it be handled

through effective crisis communication. Organization many times faced crisi situations and it

is very important that it is handled through better communication. Organizational crisis is

considered as a threat to the company and its operation as it could harm on the reputation of

the organization. The paper will critically discuss on how crisis situation can be handled and

how important it is to form an effective team to handle the crisis.

Keywords: crisis, business, crisis communication, response

Crisis Communication

A crisis does harm the organization repute because it generates the negative

information about the company (King, 2000). A crisis is defined as a significant threat to

operations and the reputation of an organization that can result to negative consequences if

not handled effectively. The threat in the crisis management is the potential damage that a

crisis can inflict on an organization, to its stakeholders, or an industry. Crisis can be related to

three threats i.e. public safety, financial loss and reputation loss. Dilenschnieder (2000)

clearly states that, all these crisis threaten to tarnish the reputation of an organization to some

degree.

It is very important that there is effective crisis management in any organization.

Crisis management is a process that is designed to prevent or lessen the damage caused by the

crisis. Crisis management comes with three phases of process;

1. Pre – Crisis: Pre crisis is concentrated on prevention and preparation of the crisis

management, keeping in mind that any crisis could occur.

2. Crisis Response: The crisis response is the phase when the management has to

actually respond to the crisis, with its team and through effective role.

3. Post – Crisis: The post crisis is that phase when the management looks for the

better ways to prepare and prevent from other crisis and moreover looks into

fulfillment of the commitments done during the crisis response phase.

Here is an example of effective and ineffective crisis management;

In-effective crisis management: We know the case of the Union Carbide India Limited, when

a gas leak tragedy happened in Bhopal, on December 2, 1984. The gas leaked on the night of

December 2 from the pesticide pant of the company in Bhopal. The plant leaked the methyl

isocynate gas and other chemicals that resulted to the death of thousands of people. Around
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2259 people were dead. This was one major crisis caused that hampered the reputation of the

company and a big allegation for the cause of the death of thousands people at Bhopal. In this

situation, the industry just had to shut down as it could not do anything to recover the crisis.

Effective Crisis Management: In the year 1993, Pepsi Corporation had faced a crisis that

raised a question to the production of the company and to the reputation as well. It was

claimed that there were syringes being found in the cans of diet Pepsi. In this situation, the

company immediately had an action to tackle these situation. The company urges all the

stores not to remove the cans from the shelves until the cans and the situation were well

investigated. Later then, Pepsi released a video showing the process of production and that

such tampering was impossible within their factories. This video made an assurance to the

public that the product they provide is safe. This was an effective communication for an

effective crisis management.

Taking a reference to one of the crisis situation that happened on 2016 summer with

Southwest Airlines' social media response. In the summer of 2016, Southwestern Airlines

faced a wide-reaching technology failure. Its website and other key systems were down for

more than 12 hours. This led the airlines to cancel thousands of flights. This had brought a

major crisis for the company. There was a heavy flow of the complaints and queries from the

customers. Over the course of four days, the company continuously worked on responding to

the customer complaints as quick as possible, largely on the social media. Southwestern did

apologized for the inconvenience, admitted its fault and continuously were updating about the

crisis unfolds. The team of Southwestern also made the use of the photos and videos to

Facebook and Twitter in response to the complaint of the customers (Center & Stansberry,

2003).
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There came a time when the attack from the customer service request and complaints

where overwhelm to the social media team of the company. No later, the team started

ignoring the response and left the complaint unanswered for hours, and days in the case of

facebook. In this situation the company could have handled the situation very effectively.

Role of spokesperson: A spokesperson is the one who is responsible to convey the

message to the public be it internal or external. They should be a professionals in mass

communication. The spokesperson carries a huge responsibility on how the message is to be

delivered in an effective way. The same applies when there is crisis in the organization, when

the spokesperson needs to communicate with the public, media without harming the

reputation of the organization. Spokesperson can be anyone, CEO or Managers, etc.

If I was to be the spokesperson of Southwestern Airlines, I would have planned

something as such;

Internal Communication: Internal communication is very important when it comes

to crisis management. One of the aspect of crisis communication focuses on how a

management communicates with its employees internally when there is a crisis. It is very

important that the employees are well known about the crisis because it helps to lessen the

stress for the employees that the crisis produces as employees can be the ambassadors during

a crisis (Frandsen & Johansen, 2011). Generally it is seen that the managers neglect their

employees during crisis communication, which does hamper the internal communication as

well as external communication of the company towards public. As a Spokesperson, I would

disseminate the information about the crisis to all my employees and think to act accordingly.

I would not focus on how did the situation come but rather how can the situation be solved

and what immediate actions can be taken. This step would help the company to

collaboratively work on the crisis management and be focused when replying or contacting
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with the public. My best step would be forming a crisis management team whose role will be

predefined and work accordingly.

Communication with public and media: When it comes to communication and

public media, public relations play critical role in crisis communication. This person will be

responsible for handling questions from the media persons. The media relation element for a

pubic relation in crisis management is very critical and highly influential. They can be the

support for the crisis communication as they are not the main spokesperson. I would have

allocated my public relation manager to be the side support for the spokesperson in

communicating with the public and media.

While the social media staff were ignoring the complaints of the customers in

facebook, twitter, what I would have done to lessen the flow is upload an apology video in

the social media. This is one popular tool used in crisis communication. There are instances,

when this tool have worked very well. Domino's CEO posted an apology video during its

food case. This step from Southwestern could have lessen the flow of the complaints from the

customer.

Crisis Management Team

Barton (2001) have well identified the common members for the crisis management team i.e.

public relations, legal, security, operations and human resources. The following crisis

management team roles shall be allocated;

1. Public Relations Manager: He/she is responsible for all the communication with the

media and also act as a support person for the spokesperson in corporate

communication.

2. Medical, Health Manager: He/she assess and advices on the human health aspects and

impacts that arises during crisis.

3. Operation Manager: Anticipates business unit and develops strategical plans to

address the crisis.

4. Security Manager: He/She revises on the security related plans and procedures.

5. Human Resource Manager: He/She manages the internal employees in terms of roles

and responsibility in the crisis.

Conclusion

This paper descriptively highlighted on the real life crisis of Southwestern Airlines

Company and how can it be handled through effective crisis communication. Organization

many times faced crisis situations and it is very important that it is handled through better

communication. Organizational crisis is considered as a threat to the company and its

operation as it could harm on the reputation of the organization. The paper well

communicated regarding the crisis communication team and their roles and responsibilities.
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References:

King, G. (2002). Crisis management & team effectiveness: A closer examination. Journal of

Business Ethics, 41(3), 235-249.

Dilenschneider, R. L. (2000). The corporate communications bible: Everything you need to

know to become a public relations expert. New Millennium Press.

Frandsen, F., & Johansen, W. (2011). The study of internal crisis communication: towards an

integrative framework. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 16(4),

347-361.

Barton, L. (2001). Crisis in organizations II (2nd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: College Divisions

South-Western. 

Center, A. H., Jackson, P., Smith, S., & Stansberry, F. R. (2003). Public relations practices:

Managerial case studies and problems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.