We say it a lot at Wellons Communications: No one likes to think about their worst day at work. Even so, at some point in your business career, you’re going need crisis communications. It might be something as small as a negative review on social media or as big as a natural disaster, customer or employee injury or a police incident.

So when it happens, do you know who you’re going to call? The most important way to approach crisis communications is to have a plan in place. That plan will include having a crisis team and a process for speedy communications. While your plan might be different for your business and might scale based on the incident, here are three good calls to make in any crisis.

Internal stakeholders

Assuming you have already called 911 if the situation warrants, the first calls you should make in a crisis situation are to your own team. You need to make sure everyone is on the same page and the plan is being activated. You might need to call managers on the ground to find out more about who is involved and what happened, and you should tell them to ensure all media calls are being directed to your spokesperson. No manager or employee should be speaking with media or posting to social media without approval—everything can be a company statement. If media are inquiring, have staff members take a message with contact information so the PR team can return calls. You should also be alerting leadership about the situation as part of the crisis PR plan.

The PR team

Immediately after you contact key team players, you should alert your PR team to the situation. At Wellons, we’ve answered the phone in the middle of the night more than once. This is why you have a crisis PR firm. They have an outside view of the situation and are trained to respond in a way that puts your company in the strongest position for a tough situation. Your PR team should be activating holding responses that are planned in advance and working through the chain of communications to prepare a statement or media availability. They should be fielding calls and emails asking for comments and distributing the approved statement or setting up spokesperson interviews. Their team should also be monitoring for any coverage or repercussions and sharing updates with stakeholders.

Legal or HR

Once some of the dust has settled in a situation, you might need to call your legal or HR team, depending on the situation. They’ll be able to shed light on what, if any, next steps or long-term tactics you need to adopt. These might affect future communications as you move forward in the post-crisis business landscape, so be sure to update your PR team.

What’s next?

Once you’re on the other side of a crisis, you should meet with your stakeholders and PR team to develop a plan for communications going forward. Will there be updates to this story or situation? Do you need to rehab your company reputation in any way to regain trust? If business has returned to normal, you might also want to review your crisis communications plan. Or, if this was a wake-up call, you might want to dig in and craft a better plan for next time—because there will be a next time.

Want some expert advice? At Wellons Communications, we’ve been through just about everything and helped clients come out the other side with great crisis communications. Make us your first call after finishing this blog. We answer 24/7, 365. Dial 407-462-2718.