[00:00:00] Companies the world over are at some point likely to experience a reputational crisis. It could be due to poor management, illegal activity, dodgy products or services. A media focus on your sector for all the wrong reasons. Or quite honestly, anything in between. So as a comms pro, you are brought in to respond to the crisis and do what you can to help the company weather the storm and come out the other side.

[00:00:26] But this is where the real work begins, the recovery phase of the crisis cycle. It is the time when the hard work goes into repairing the reputation damage, and hopefully resetting the organization for a new error. So what does it actually mean and what can you do to repair a reputation after a crisis?

[00:00:46] That's what we'll be tackling in today's episode.   

[00:00:53] Hello, friend. Welcome back to Less Chatter More Matter, the communications podcast. I'm your host, Mel Loy, and I'm recording this on the lands of the Yuggera and Turrbal people here in Meanjin Brisbane. And today we're going to talk about reputation repair strategies, because let's face it, there's a lot of companies and individuals out there who need some reputation repair.

[00:01:15] I think it is helpful to first think about what do we mean by reputation. I've heard it described as what people say about you or your brand when you are not in the room, which I really like. But we also need to remember that sometimes what people say when you're out of earshot isn't accurate either, and that's the thing about reputations.

[00:01:35] They may not be fair, but they exist, so we need to address them. And the first thing you need to do is understand what it is exactly people think about your brand. So before you rush into repair strategies, please do your research. You can engage agencies who do research to understand what levels of trust people have in your brand, what their issues are, and so on.

[00:01:57] That does give you a baseline to work from because you need to measure the effectiveness of these repair strategies so you know what's working and what's not. You can also get data from, say, customer feedback surveys. Employee surveys, just anecdotal evidence from your frontline as well. Use all of that and give yourself a baseline because you can then start to create comm strategies that will help you best address those issues.

[00:02:20] It will also help you measure how effective those have been. But in the absence of those insights, I'm going to share five strategies that could be used in most cases where reputation repair is needed. So let's get into it. Number one, I've said this a million times before. Your people are either your biggest advocates or your biggest detractors.

[00:02:41] So during a crisis, start with your people. Companies tend to make the mistake of only focusing on external audiences and the external reputation, but reputation starts from within with your people. If you have a poor internal reputation, it's likely to very quickly lead to a poor external reputation. So communication needs to have this laser-like focus on your people.

[00:03:06] They're likely to be feeling the impacts of the crisis more than most, and you are going to need them to help you rebuild the reputation with your external stakeholders. And that's why you need a plan for communicating with your people throughout the entire recovery phase. This needs to start with honest conversations where people are given the opportunity to ask questions, share their own feelings and experiences, and be offered support.

[00:03:30] And this isn't a once off activity. You need to continue to engage with and update your people regularly, sometimes forever. And importantly, get them involved in creating the reputation solutions. Your people are often closest to your customers and they will have some really good ideas on how best to work with them.

[00:03:50] And when they help co-create those solutions, they have skin in the game. And that sense of ownership can help build engagement and morale, which is exactly what you need to do. Another part of communicating with your people is of course, communicating with your leaders. So they are going to be needed to help communicate message down, but also lead their people and their external stakeholders through this recovery phase.

[00:04:13] So your leaders need to be equipped to have these conversations, which means they also need some opportunities to ask questions, share feedback and ideas, and really get across the nitty gritty of it. They have to feel really well informed and confident. To communicate well. So that's the first strategy.

[00:04:30] Start with your people. The next recovery strategy is to actually get out there and talk to impacted stakeholders. Ask what they need. Don't assume what they know. In the past, we've often seen companies just throw money at the problem, throw money at people, at communities, without any proper consultation.

[00:04:50] It doesn't fix the problems. It doesn't show you actually care. It does not help your reputation. So if you have stakeholders who have been impacted by your business, set up time for thoughtful conversation. Find out what challenges they're facing and get them involved to design a response that will support them meaningfully, authentically into the future.

[00:05:11] For example, in 2015, a tailing stand that was part of a mining operation in Brazil collapsed and that resulted in flooding downstream. Apart from destroying two villages, it also tragically killed 19 people, and it spread these pollutants along 668 kilometers of rivers and streams. It was just awful. So apart from that tragic loss of life, people lost their homes, their livelihoods, and of course it was a massive environmental disaster.

[00:05:40] Now that mind was a joint venture between BHP and Vail, two very big organizations. There's been a few lawsuits. But what they did do right in the recovery was to not only pay us $2.3 billion in compensation, but the two organizations also established a foundation to develop and deliver programs. Aimed at restoring the environment.

[00:06:01] Communities, work with communities to figure out what they needed to improve those social conditions in the areas they worked together to come up with the strategy. And even now, all these years later, they're still working through the foundation. They established. If you just do a Google search for some Marco Dam remediation, you will probably be able to find that pretty quickly.

[00:06:23] So that's a really good example of what to do, and the other part of these conversations is to make sure it is the right person having that conversation to begin with. That absolutely needs to be the CEO. In the Sammarco Dam case, that's what happened. The CEO dropped everything, hopped on a plane, got to Brazil very quickly.

[00:06:39] The CEO or your C-suite, they can't dial this one in. They can't send a middle manager to do the job. When that happens, again, it shows a real lack of genuine empathy that erodes the trust even more in your brand. So get the CEO in to do the work and have those initial conversations. They should also continue to check in personally as the recovery work progresses.

[00:07:02] So that was number two. Get on the ground. Talk to your stakeholders. The next communications recovery strategy is to double down on your company's values and demonstrate them in action. There's often what we call this, say, do gap between what a company says its values are and what they actually do in practice.

[00:07:20] And we also see that say, do gap, uh, with leaders when they. Demonstrate that they talk all the right talk, but they're not walking it. So to repair your reputation, you need to eliminate that. Say, do gap, take actions that show your company's values, align with the expectations of your stakeholders, and then share those stories.

[00:07:40] Now, this is where a strong and genuine ESG strategy comes into play. If you're not sure, ESG means environmental sustainability and governance. Uh, sometimes it's called CSR, corporate social responsibility, whatever it is you call it, if it's not authentic and not in action. Then it's a bit useless. But this recovery phase is your opportunity to show that your ESG strategy is sound.

[00:08:03] It's meaningful and authentic. It's also an opportunity to actually get some momentum behind that strategy if you haven't had that yet. So look at your ESG principles. What do you need to double down on and then shout that from the rooftops. Obviously, if it's an environmental issue, then you really need to highlight what you're doing in that space to repair the environment, or if it's a social issue, you focus on that.

[00:08:27] The key here though, is effective storytelling. Just sharing a list of dot points about what's in your plan or what you say We are committed to, blah, blah, blah. Won't cut the mustard. You need to use effective storytelling to show these ESG principles in action, how you're addressing the issues and the outcomes you are achieving.

[00:08:47] Telling the story well grabs attention, but it also helps to tap into that very human side of recovery communication, which is so key to rebuilding trust and therefore your reputation. All right. Recovery strategy number four is to face the issue head on. Do not ignore the elephant in the room. If you stick your head in the sand and pretend it hasn't happened, that only does more damage to your company's reputation.

[00:09:13] It sends a message that you don't care about the impact and you don't care about the people involved. It also sends a message that you're not connected with your stakeholders, and it comes across as pretty tone deaf. Every interview a GM, town Hall, et cetera, is an opportunity to address the issue upfront.

[00:09:32] Apologize again and share how you're going to fix it. This type of genuine communication helps to rebuild trust, and it also shows a level of transparency that people respect, as well as, I guess a level of vulnerability that helps people reconnect to your brand. But it does require really good communication training because whoever is sharing this message has to be prepared to answer questions.

[00:09:56] And trust me, there will be a lot of questions and some of them will be really tough. So being able to answer them clearly concisely, but still compassionately is key. And being able to refocus the conversation on the future rather than the past is also going to be important because while we need to acknowledge the failures, we need to direct people's minds forward as well, to be able to focus on the good stuff that you're doing.

[00:10:22] Another element to this strategy is to keep reporting back. There will be people who move on, but a lot of people, including your really important, very critical stakeholders, will keep watching to see how you tackle this. So you will need to keep reporting back on your progress to address the issue.

[00:10:39] Basically, it can't be at say at once, and then it's all over kind of response. So that's number four. Don't ignore the elephant in the room. Okay onto number five, and that is your advertising should reflect your commitment to fixing your reputation. Do not return to your usual advertising too quickly.

[00:10:58] Simply reverting back to the campaigns you already had in market will not cut it. If you do that, it can come across as super tone deaf if you're running these happy, positive messages about your products or services when your company just caused a whole lot of harm. And if you do that, expect your social media channels to blow up and not in a good way.

[00:11:17] So instead, your advertising really needs to pivot very quickly to addressing the issue, but you need to balance that with the perception of costs. So. For example, back in April, 2010, there was an explosion on the deep water horizon oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. And very sadly, 11 people were killed and 17 people were injured in the disaster.

[00:11:39] And about 780,000 cubic meters of oil was spilled and it just caused causes catastrophic environmental and social damage. Now, there were so many crisis management values in this one. Trust me, go look it up. There's so many. But one of those was their advertising strategy, or rather lack thereof in the aftermath.

[00:12:00] So in a crisis, you have to move quickly. There is no time to dilly dally around about semantics, getting 20 million approvals, et cetera. And the same goes for recovery. You can't wait to start your recovery period. You just need to start. In this case, BP who owned the oil rig eventually started an ad campaign talking about how they were cleaning up and responding to the disaster, but that wasn't until six weeks after the event happened.

[00:12:25] That is a lot of time for unhappy people to have their say and build their anger. Also, the advertising campaign was reported to cost about 50 million US dollars, which many commentators at the time, including the then president of the USA thought was way too expensive and was money that could have been spent on the impacted environment and the impacted community.

[00:12:48] So this is where your marketing and your comms teams really need to work well together, hand in hand quickly to act and act well. It's also where it absolutely pays to have a crisis comms plan in place already so people know exactly what they need to do and when during and after the acute phase of the crisis is over.

[00:13:10] Okay, so it is time for your episode recap, and today we covered five strategies you can use in your crisis recovery communication. They are, number one, start with your people. They will be needed to support your external stakeholders, but they can also help shape the response in really meaningful ways.

[00:13:28] Remember, your employees can be your biggest advocates or biggest detractors, so engage them from the start. Number two, get on the ground and talk to stakeholders. Don't dial it in and don't send in middle management. Get the right people, meaning stakeholders on their turf, and get their input into solutions that will actually work.

[00:13:48] Number three, demonstrate your company values in action. Look at your ESG plan. Beef it up if you need. Take those actions and tell authentic stories about the outcomes. Number four, don't ignore the elephant in the room. Every comms is an opportunity to face the issue, head on and share what you're doing to fix it.

[00:14:07] Not talking about it does more damage. And number five, don't return to normal advertising too soon. Instead, quickly create a cost effective campaign to educate people about what's happened, to apologize, and to talk about how you are fixing it. One final thing to remember. You can't just take one of these tactics, do it, and think you've ticked the box.

[00:14:29] Recovery takes a really long time. When you look at any of the big issues like Deep Water Horizon or the Optus Hacking and Outage, or anything in between, you'll notice they are still working on those recovery comms today. They are constantly providing updates on their websites, their social media, in their annual reports and so on.

[00:14:48] So be prepared. You need to be in it for the long term. Okay folks, speaking of crisis communication, we are running two virtual bootcamps on this topic this year, and our first one is coming up super soon. So early bird ends very shortly. So if you want a great price for some great learning and you want all the knowledge and tools you need to be prepared, then get in quick.

[00:15:10] I am limiting these courses to only 10 people. So check out the link in the show notes. Send me a message if you have any questions. In the meantime, I hope you found a lot of value in this episode, and if you did, why not share it with somebody who you think would also enjoy it, but also please rate and review the show.

[00:15:26] It really helps the learning to spread even further. Until next time, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.