Reputation is critical to the health of any organisation.
But reputation is also increasingly fragile.
A single incident can cause severe damage to a brand. And that harm can be rapidly inflicted in the age of social media.
As Benjamin Franklin once said: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”
So, how can organisations embed reputation management in their management processes, predict and prevent the risks, and assess the damage when the worst does happen?
This was something we looked at in the second part of our series of crisis masterclasses for members of The Media Team Academy.
The session was led by Sean Ryan, a former national journalist who is now director of comms at a high-profile charity.
And he began by looking at how organisations can better understand their reputational risks.
Risk registers
It is not possible to predict the exact form a crisis media management incident will take.
But you can identify where you are vulnerable and make a plan for each eventuality, reducing the chances of being caught out by something unexpected.
The best way to do this is through a risk register – a document that identifies risks and forecasts pitfalls.
“A risk register allows you to prepare,” Sean said.
“You look at what could happen, who is responsible for that risk, who leads the communication, how big the risk is, the action to prepare for that crisis, and when you should review it.
“You hope these things don’t happen, but it is a way to reassure yourself, your bosses, your trustees and your auditors you are prepared for a crisis.”
You can find a risk register in the template section of the Academy.
Speed
When the worst does happen, organisations need to move quickly to minimise reputational damage.
The days of the ‘golden hour’ have gone. In the age of stories breaking on social media, 15 minutes could be too long.
That’s a daunting timeframe.
Holding or template statements are a great way of ensuring an organisation can respond quickly to what has happened and begin communicating. And they can be drafted now.
Done well, these statements can buy your organisation some crucial time until it can better understand what has happened and issue something more detailed.
But what should they say?
You need to show CARE. This is an acronym you may have seen us refer to before.
It stands for Compassion, Action, Reassurance and Examples.
Sean said: “You must show compassion. You need to show you are on top of the situation and are taking the right action. You also need to provide reassurance – sometimes this will come from the action you are taking. And you need to include examples to bring those action and reassurance messages to life.”
Spokesperson
Sean says it is also critical organisations are clear on who will speak to the media during a crisis.
“This is a dilemma for all of us,” Sean said.
“Do you choose the most senior person - the chief executive or a senior director who is accountable for the crisis? Or do you choose the person who connects best with the audience?
“I would say the only exception to choosing the person who connects best is when the CEO or senior director are being accused publicly of doing something wrong. In that situation, it may be best for them to get out there and defend themselves.
“But in other situations, it does seem better to choose the best spokesperson.”
What about if the most senior person insists on doing the interviews?
“It will come down to the relationship you have with them,” Sean said. “If you tell them it is not a good idea, and they trust you, you have more of a chance.
“If you don’t have that relationship - perhaps because they are new - get a third person to endorse your view that it is in the organisation’s best interest for someone else to be the spokesperson and step into the spotlight.”
“It is also important to remember if you put the CEO forward at an early stage, every interview request that comes in will be for an interview with them and, if you are not careful, he or she will be overwhelmed and demoralised. And distracted from what they should be doing - sorting out the crisis.”
Whoever you choose, make sure they have had recent crisis communication training – many organisations now renew crisis communication training every six months.
There is also a checklist in the resource hub of The Media Team Academy to help you determine the best spokesperson in the Academy.
Assess
When a crisis does happen, how do you assess the reputational hit?
One of the challenges surrounding assessing reputational damage is it is not an exact science.
It is all about perception.
This means we don’t have a standard way of measuring it - making it tricky to quantify.
So, what should you focus on?
Sean believes there are five crucial indicators.
He said: “We all see crises playing out in the media day in, day out. And I don’t know about you, but I often think, ‘there but for the grace of God go I’.
“What we see less of is, once a crisis fades from the headlines, what is the reckoning? How much damage has been done to an organisation’s finances? Its brand? Staff morale? And its prospects?”
Negative coverage
It is vital organisations monitor how the media reports the crisis.
To illustrate his point, he looked at how the media reported redundancy announcements at two companies.
Just before Christmas, digital mortgage company Better.com told 900 employees they were losing their job in a three-minute Zoom call.
Here are a few of the angry headlines it generated:
CEO fires 900 employees over Zoom call: ‘Your employment is terminated, effective immediately' Independent
Better.com boss Vishal Garg sacks 900 staff over Zoom The Times
Better.COM CEO fires employees in a cold, one-way video announcement Forbes
‘Not great news’: US boss fires 900 employees on a Zoom call Guardian
Compare that to the coverage generated by PR firm Edelman when it announced the loss of almost 400 jobs – a decision the boss Richard Edelman described as “heartbreaking” and “gut-wrenching”:
Chicago-based PR firm Edelman to lay off 390 employees due to Covid 19 losses Chicago Tribune
Edelman cuts staff by nearly 7% PR Week
As you can see, these job losses were reported straight or more neutrally, reducing the reputational damage to the company.
Another good indicator is whether the media quickly moves on to other stories.
If the news cycle rapidly moves to something else, the reputational hit will likely be less. However, the longer the media focuses on your crisis, the more damage there is likely to be to your reputation.
If you put out positive stories during the crisis, and they get coverage, that can also be a good indicator of brand perception.
Share price, income and donations
Another pivotal way of assessing reputation ramifications is to look at whether the crisis is impacting your income.
This is the age of the boycott. Almost as soon as an organisation is perceived to have done something wrong, there are social media calls for people to boycott it. #Boycott has become a popular way for consumers to show their displeasure.
So, is your crisis resulting in customer loss? Is it affecting your bottom line?
It is worth considering a survey last year showed 86 per cent of companies believe reputational damage would translate to loss of income.
If you are a charity - and some of the most damaging recent crises have involved them - are you getting fewer donations? Are you losing volunteers?
A poll by Third Sector six months after the Oxfam sex scandal broke showed 60 per cent of people were less likely to donate to the charity. It also lost volunteers.
Similarly, the rise and fall of share value tend to mirror an organisation’s image.
When Ryanair announced the loss of 3,000 jobs in 2020, its share price fell by four per cent. Back in 2010, Toyota’s shares dropped by 15 per cent after it recalled more than 8 million vehicles.
Research from Deloitte has revealed it can take 80 days for a company to recover lost share price after a crisis.
Brand tracking
This is a way of continually measuring the health of your brand and what people think about it.
It can include metrics such as brand loyalty, brand awareness and brand preference.
The daily data provided by some of these services, such as YouGov, can help you detect emerging crises.
And it can also enable you to evaluate how your crisis responses are landing and the impact the incident has on your reputation.
That constantly updated insight can help you tweak your strategy and tactics if necessary.
“I think this is fascinating and is a great way of tracking the reputational damage of a crisis longer term,” Sean said.
“If you see the brand health is improving, it is a reassuring message to give to those higher up in the organisation.”
We mentioned Oxfam earlier. The latest brand tracking information for the charity is that it is liked by 63 per cent and disliked by 17 per cent. Save the Children, another charity hit by scandals, is liked by 73 per cent and disliked by 5 per cent.
There can be costs with this, but some information is available for free. The information about Oxfam was found by Googling ‘Oxfam brand health YouGov’.
Sales teams, customer services and social media monitoring may also have information that can help if you have systems in place.
Net sentiment
This metric is based on subtracting negative media coverage from the positive reports to give you a score.
Typically, it is calculated monthly.
Sean said: “It is a reassuring thing if you have been through a rough patch, and the score shows it was not as bad as you feared from the inside.”
Staff sentiment
Your people are your greatest assets. How do they feel about what has happened?
Do they have concerns? Do they have ideas on how to avoid something similar happening in future?
The impact of a crisis stays with employees much longer after the public and media have moved on.
If they feel disgruntled about how an incident is being managed, and believe their concerns are not heard, you could get leaks - potentially triggering another reputational crisis.
Longer-term, this could result in a loss of talent and hinder your ability to recruit the best people.
Employee engagement surveys are an excellent way of assessing the impact of a crisis on your people.
“The impact on staff is often overlooked,” Sean said. “But every organisation is only as good as its people.
“If staff are demotivated, they will not be productive and will be likely to leave. So, keep monitoring employee engagement - or morale - on a regular basis.”
Remember the Better.com example? Not only did its profits turn to losses, but the crisis led to the departures of more staff, including from the senior leadership team.
Media First are media and communications training specialists with more than 35 years of experience. We have a team of trainers, each with decades of experience working as journalists, presenters, communications coaches and media trainers.
Don’t forget you can find recordings of all our masterclasses in the Masterclass Video Library section of The Media Team Academy.
And check out the Essential Crisis Management online training courses you can access with your membership.
