Your reputation is your most valuable asset. While crisis management can begin with very few reputation management practices in place, failing to bank the good will that it can create before a crisis hits is a dangerous choice. In a recent article Bret Giles, President of agencyside, gave a couple of excellent examples:
A client with reputation management practices in place makes crisis management that much easier. When Southwest ran into issues with a vocal, overweight celebrity, the energy it had invested in reputation management made the crisis much easier to address. With no reputation management, the brand is left to implement a crisis management plan with few to no tools. For instance, recent stories surfaced about Enterprise Rent-A-Car renting vehicles that had been recalled, resulting in unnecessary deaths. This is a crisis. This calls for crisis management. Unfortunately for Enterprise, they barely have a Facebook presence, have essentially no Twitter presence and cannot easily deploy a group of evangelists to extol the virtues of the brand. They will not speak on camera. They look guilty and they have no one there to protect their reputation.
There are many more recent examples, from the good (think Apple) to the downright ugly (BP, Toyota). With methods that can be scaled according to each organization’s needs and budget, there is no excuse for ignoring reputation management.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/