A public relations crisis is an event, rumour or story that has a potential to affect your reputation, image or credibility in a negative way. Everything from product tampering and contamination to alleged discrimination or lawsuits may be an example of a PR crisis.

PR is an art of demonstration and the PR crisis management is not an exception. It is of great importance to follow certain rules to make people not only believe your message, but also pay attention to it and remember it.

The first rule of the PR crisis management is: Facilitate information in a quick and timely manner. How you emerge from the situation is determined by how quickly you communicate the facts to victims, press, investors, shareholders and other audiences.

Below are some important rules of the PR crisis management:

·         Always tell the truth.

·         Be prepared. A communications plan has to be in place before a disaster strikes.

·         Demonstrate compassion.

·         Move quickly, do not stand there stunned.

·         Make fast decisions and swift adjustments. For instance, you are faced with having to spend money in order to clear up the situation. If you do it now, it will seem like your choice, however, if you do it later, it will seem like you were acting only due to pressure.

·         Do not avoid the press.

·         Return all calls from the press promptly.

·         Admit when you messed up, apologize, explain how you are going to fix it and then, do what you promised.

Every time you have the feeling that something went wrong with your business and your concern has to do with the media exposure that threatens to damage a corporate reputation, do not become panic-stricken.

The first thing you should do is to make every effort to gather pertinent facts, quickly assess the situation and respond to key audiences in an open and honest manner. Take necessary measures to quickly solve the situation. Avoid jeopardizing the integrity and safety of your company, your co-workers and customers.

Appoint executives to a standing crisis communications team, which members should include the CEO, COO, CFO, PR manager, marketing manager and customer service manager at the very least. They will be called on in times of crisis to make decisions and determine a policy. Assign one member of the team as a primary contact between the team and the public. As a rule, it is the PR manager.

You also have to educate employees, especially top and middle managers, about your crisis procedures and managing public relations. Establish communication strategies to address crisis situations: select an appropriate spokesperson; create press materials; communicate your crisis response to all key audiences: employees, government agencies, vendors, consumers and the media.

One more important rule of the PR crisis management is to analyze a post-crisis summary report, which contains a cause of the crisis, an extent and tone of media coverage, suggested improvements in the crisis response process, ways to implement those changes and possible alterations to the company policy and procedures.