everbridge: bp - what not to do when the world is watching
Post on 21-Oct-2014
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Boycotts, public outcry, and a tarnished reputation - some of the lasting side-effects of one of the worst oil spills in history. Despite having significant resources, BP has made one crisis communications mistake after another. Could it happen to you if a major disaster were to derail your best-laid plans? Dr. Robert Chandler, renowned crisis communication expert, dissects the missteps of BP's messaging and tell us how to avoid a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion.TRANSCRIPT
BP: What NOT to Do When the World is WatchingRobert Chandler, PhDDirector, Nicholson School of CommunicationUniversity of Central Florida
• Leader in incident notification systems
• Fast-growing global company with more than 1,000 clients in more than 100 countries
• Serve the Global 2000, federal government organizations, healthcare systems, state and local government, military, financial services firms, and universities
• 100% focused on incident notification solutions that merge technology and expertise
3
About Everbridge
Part 1: Presentation • Crisis communications mistakes and missteps• What to say to mitigate public outcry during a crisis• How to clean up your reputation after a crisis
Part 2: Q&A
Agenda
Use the Q&A function to submit your questions.
Slides are currently available to everyone on blog.everbridge.com
Q&A
twitter.com/everbridgefacebook.com/everbridgeincyoutube.com/user/everbridge
Bracing for the 2010 Hurricane SeasonBP: What NOT to Do
When the World is Watching
Dr. Robert ChandlerUniversity of Central Florida
No one is worried about braking anymore…
Toyota’s braking woes quickly subsided as Tony Hayward and the BP crisis captured our attention 3 months ago
The oil spill timeline
A timeline of mistakes
What not to do:BP’s lessons learned
• Don’t take too long to respond to the crisis• Do not shift the blame – take/accept responsibility• Actions should fulfill promises made• Don’t drag your feet • Don’t make unrealistic promises • Don’t lose sight of your audience and critics• Don’t fail to understand all facets of the situation
• All too frequently, there is a lack of adequate advance planning and preparedness to communicate effective messages – or even understanding that various types of message options exist.
• Most managers have little training in what to say to best protect their image or help repair it when it has been tarnished.
Advance planning
There is no substitute for carefully preparing communication in a crisis to prevent the blunders and missteps we have seen with BP
• Prepare messaging in advance• Focus on a set of key messages that need to be delivered• Each phase of the crisis should be well scripted and practiced• Keep comments respectful to all parties involved• If you expect to speak in front of a camera, practice beforehand• Avoid sounding scripted• You will be more comfortable when unexpected events occur
“There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like my life back.”
- Tony Hayward, CEO, BP
Script out your communication beforehand
Don’t stray from your plan
Practice your crisis communication plan early and often to prevent swaying from key messaging. In two distinct instances, Hayward’s message has contradicted BP’s oil spill disaster plan.
• Media statement: Promised that BP would clean up every drop of oil and “restore the shoreline to its original state”.
• National TV commercial: Pledges "We will make this right.”
"No statement shall be made containing any of the following: promises that property, ecology
or anything else will be restored to normal." -BP’s oil disaster plan
filed with the federal government in 2009
Every stage of the crisis dictates your audience’s information requirements and your response
BP
Stage 4: Management
• The crisis either moves toward resolution or gets worse with deepening layers of complexity.
• Organizations must provide regular status updates to their various audiences, change or add to previous instructions, control rumors, and conference with leadership and responder teams.
• Course-correction may be needed to respond to changes in the situation.
Stage 5: Resolution
• The crisis has been resolved and is drawing to conclusion.• Communicate resolution in the form of all-clear alerts and
messages of reassurance. • Recall or demobilize emergency response or management
protocols and procedures.• Change (transfer) of command authority or structure.• Indicate status of return to “normalcy”.• Indicate transition to “recovery”.• Provide closure.
Stage 6: Recovery
• Convert this turning point into opportunity.• Revolve all communication around post-crisis counseling
and return to pre-crisis policies and operations.• Offer relief, celebration, and acknowledgement for getting
through the crisis.• Evaluate, modify, and execute planned recovery strategies.• Examine damages, losses, and costs.• Acknowledge any shortcomings and how they will be
rectified in the future.
Deliver messages the right wayBP’s lessons learned• Speak clearly, simply, and calmly.• Convey compassion, conviction, and optimism.• Recognize and acknowledge anger, frustration, fear,
outrage, or concern.• Indicate that you genuinely share your audience’s
concerns.• Provide 3 or more positive points to counter negative
information.• Gain trust by admitting there are things you don’t know.• Accept and involve the public and the media as
legitimate partners.
Responding to rumors and inaccuracies
• Move quickly to correct.• Keep the level of response
appropriate to the level of the problem.• Overreacting to an isolated
mistake attracts attention to the problem you’re trying to correct.
• Under-reacting to widely reported information that is not correct will compound the error.
• Be careful that your comments don’t leave the wrong impression and that they are not open to interpretation.
• If a rumor is confined to a small audience—correct it within that group, don’t create a major public event.
• If a rumor is widely known and spreading—move aggressively and publicly to correct it.
• When squelching a rumor, anticipate how the rumor might evolve in response to your efforts. Be as thorough as you can in closing off avenues for future rumors.
BP’s reputation repair
BP should take these steps immediately to repair its stained reputation:
• Bolstering • Mitigation efforts • Speed up compensation efforts• Take immediate corrective action • Take responsibility – make a public apology
for the entire situation
The basics of reputation repair
• Companies can (and will) be faulted or blamed for various crises and disasters.
• In some cases, this threat to reputation and brand pose far greater risks than the physical catastrophes.
• In every critical situation, image and brand management are increasingly important in the wake of dollars lost due to reputation and brand erosion as well as declining stakeholder confidence due to such scandals.
Communication activities involved in responding to a reputation-damaging crisis include determining:
• Optimal timing • Message or thematic priorities• Specific messages to be conveyed to the public and media• Specific messages to be conveyed to targeted individuals• Source(s) of messages • Priorities for communication• Optimal delivery channels
The basics of reputation repair
Incident Notification
Linda SouzaDirector of Strategic Marketing, Everbridge
Incident notification solutions address common communication challenges
• Communicate quickly, easily, and efficiently with large numbers of people in minutes, not hours, making sure that information about your disaster exercise is conveyed
• Use all contact paths especially when sending crucial in-exercise communication
• Ensure two-way communications to know what parts of your exercise are working and which parts need your attention
• Reduce miscommunications and control rumors with accurate, consistent messages (3P = 1N)
• Free key personnel to perform critical tasks by automating manual, time-intensive, error-prone processes
• Satisfy regulatory requirementswith extensive and complete reporting of delivery attempts and two-way acknowledgements from recipients
Key evaluation criteria for an incident notification system
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• Experience and expertise
• Ease of use
• Ability to reach all contact paths, including voice, email, native SMS (over SMPP and SMTP), IM, and more
• Ease of integration
Use the Q&A function to submit your questions.
Missed anything?Slides are currently available on blog.everbridge.com
Q&A
Hear more from Dr. Chandler on EBtv
Find two-minute video clips featuring Dr. Chandler on EBtv:youtube.com/user/everbridge
Who would you rather be: the CEO of BP or President Obama?
Contact information
Linda [email protected]
Robert C. Chandler, [email protected]
Communication resources
White papers, literature, case studieseverbridge.com/resources
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