Don’t let a sudden spike in workload worsen an ongoing crisis
When you’re running an organization you staff for day-to-day operations because keeping extra bodies on the clock is a waste of resources. What happens, however, when a crisis suddenly ups the 
volume of work far beyond what you’re able to handle? Take the recent Trek bicycle recall for example. With nearly 1 million bikes being recalled, shops are getting completely slammed with calls and customer inquiries about whether they’re affected and how to get the problem part replaced, and many simply aren’t able to respond in a timely fashion.
Regardless of what business you’re in, there are steps you can take in case of a sudden massive uptick in work required:
1. Hire temps
Sure you may not be able to grab extra mechanics from a temp agency, but you can easily hire people to answer phones, respond to emails with a copy/paste, or take down information at a relatively low cost. It helps to have a preexisting relationship with the agencies in your area, so give them a call before you’re knee-deep in it to get a feel for their capabilities, response time, and pricing.2. Automate the extra work
Directing customers to a website with full details on the recall, and preferably a simple form to complete that will tell them if they’re affected and how to proceed if so, can save you a ton of face/phone time. While there’s no way of getting around the human interaction bit, the average person is web savvy enough to hit a link and enter some info without you investing significant effort.3. Use call forwarding to recruit the family & have staff work from anywhere
Small businesses can run into the most difficulty with these situations as they simply don’t have the budget or capability to bring in extra people at the drop of a hat. There a number of free or low-cost services, including Google Voice, that will let you forward calls from one single number to multiple phones, giving you the ability to get your significant other and even older children (IF they can handle it) in on supporting the family business regardless of where they are throughout the day. The same goes for employees, who you could have fielding questions even if they’re not physically in the building. This is asking people to go above and beyond, so remember to profusely thank everyone involved and reward them for lending an extra hand throughout.
Crisis management is most effective when you’ve planned ahead, and of course no solution is right for every organization. Constantly consider the crises that could affect you, plan accordingly, and stop blooming issues before they cost you big time.
Erik & Jonathan Bernstein
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com