How to Survive a Digital Crisis
Crises happen. To everyone, sooner or later. So how do you manage?
Day One
The first step in mastering a crisis is to identify it. To do this, I use digital listening tools with algorithms configured to report on discussions, good and bad, about my brands that reach a predetermined amount of activity within a predetermined time frame. When a discussion hits my alert threshold it achieves what a favorite manager of mine once called “high velocity.” A high velocity social media post or discussion is one that is much more likely to go viral. Good or bad, the post needs to be monitored due to the power it currently contains, and the increased power it has the potential to acquire.
Let me give you an example from when I was at the helm of an external digital communications team for an international technology company and was in the not-uncommon position of leading the response to a digital crisis.
A lengthy, in-depth post broke on a popular social site examining the failure of one of our products to perform in a niche use case. It was posted in a forum where people who use our product in that precise niche use case gathered to discuss it; a forum consisting of people who had considerable influence over the buying decisions for our products for key customers, worldwide.
To put this in perspective, this was a product that generated tens of millions in revenue, annually.
Within minutes of the post going live there were multiple responses. The creator of the discussion responded with volumes of data.
By this point I’d already shared a link to the discussion with the product’s manager and asked about the veracity of the matter. Now, however, seeing the conversation velocity, I again contacted the product manager, as well as the head of public relations, alerting them that the situation had the hallmarks of a brewing crisis—particularly if the media caught wind of it.
This was not a crisis. Yet. But in case it did develop into a full-blown crisis, I had the product manager assemble a team to examine and attempt to reproduce the data. I worked with PR on a preliminary statement. And I was constantly monitoring the online discussion. Which meant I knew the moment a trade journalist asked the original post creator to contact them. And we were prepared with the statement created in conjunction with PR.
We released our statement. By the end of the day, the trade press published their first story about the technical issue.
Day Two
By the second day, the situation had cannonballed from a single post with a few dozen replies to hundreds of replies. And, worse, the trade article was making the rounds on Twitter, with a great deal of sharing activity. I declared this a crisis and enacted my crisis plan.
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First, I built a team of stakeholders: PR, analyst and investor relations, internal communications, product marketing leaders, and key executives. I had my team create a metric report providing insights into the issue including growth analysis, identification of key players, and anticipatory crisis arc. This was updated twice daily, and sent to all stakeholders.
By noon, I obtained confirmation from our researchers that the original poster was correct. As no fix was possible, I brought customer support, logistics, and key personnel from the product’s development team into the discussion.
To ensure a balanced and accurate presentation of the facts, and to set the groundwork for managing the discussion, in conjunction with PR, I published digital statements acknowledging that we had reproduced the issue and were determining next steps.
Day Three
My twice-daily metrics report now identified a number of publications, some of them mainstream, which had picked up the news. Worse, the online discussion had taken a decidedly negative and angry tone, with some customers expressing feelings of betrayal by the brand. Our customer support team reported inbound calls and emails from customers saying the same.
By now, we had decided to offer a product replacement. The product teams had found a similar product that would solve the issue customers with the niche use case were having, but a larger issue emerged. Because the similar product was extremely similar, a new product brand would have to be created in order to distinguish it from the problematic one. Ordinarily, creating a product brand takes months—weeks, if stars truly align—but we were fortunate that the product team already had a brand name ready to go as a backup.
Our solution was in place. Now, I had to deescalate the problem while the product team, working with customer service and logistics, had to roll out the solution.
I had already assembled a response team and had written a response guide for customer support. I began by publishing a blog post explaining what was happening, what caused it, what products customers should use for the niche use case, and, most importantly, announcing the new product brand that was being developed to prevent the issue in future while explaining how customers currently affected by the issue could secure replacements. After it went live, the social team responded to hundreds of posts in a multitude of social avenues, addressing concerns, providing facts, and deescalating the situation, including providing links to the blog post. Not only was this post used by digital communications in multiple communications channels, but it was also used by PR and customer service in communications with press and customers to address the situation and provide our solution.
Day Four
Online discussion had tapered and was on track to end, thanks in large part, to the hundreds of replies my response team had published on Twitter, Reddit, and multiple additional social venues. In addition, the press had reported our response and linked to our blog. Finally, the post I wrote received tens of thousands of views over the next few weeks, simultaneously shifting the discussion away from an outside social venue out of our control to our corporate website and deescalating the problem.
Day Five
By the end of the fifth day discussion had dwindling to nothing. The crisis was over.