Managing Crisis Vocabulary - BE 4 Unit 11 : Crisis Management

Companies who are slow to react to a crisis always loose public confidence.

It is important to prepare contingency plans for likely or unlikely emergencies.

Good communication is essential, so issue a detailed press release as soon as possible.

If there is a major emergency, encourage your staff to contact their families to reassure them.

Do not rely on an individual to implement an action plan, he or she may be sick or absent on the day the crisis occurs.

If a crisis causes a factory to close, many people will suffer.

A small problem can become a major crisis if you do not control it.

X decided to hold a press conference to explain the recall of their frozen yoghurts.

Handling Crisis

The announcement was an action of damage limitation.

The company did not have a contingency plan for dealing with the crisis.

I think it is time to issue a press release.

What is the back up strategy if web conference fails to work.

The supplier accepted liability for the late delivery.

Do you think the crisis will lead to a loss of confidence in the bank?

When the news was picked up by the press, the department was quick to respond.

Customers threatened to take legal action against the toy manufacturer.

During a crisis, it is important to maintain the flow of information with employees’ representatives.

Fifty journalist attend a press conference in the staff canteen.

Book

Vocabulary BE 4 Unit 11 : Crisis Management

Work out an action plan to ensure the crisis does not happen again.

Role-play a potential crisis.

Find out what happened and how it happened.

Write down and circulate your crisis-management programme.

Try to predict what crises could occur.

Set-up a crisis management team.

Inform the directors.

Disclose as much information as you can.

Analyse the action you took to deal with the situation.

Practice making decision under stress.

Action plan

Admission of liability

Contingency plan

Damage response

Flow of information

Legal action

Loss confidence

Press conference

Press release

Speed limitation

How quickly management react to a crisis is known as the speed response.

In a breaking crisis, a manager may speak to the media at  a press conference.

Alternatively, there may be a written statement, which is given to the media in the form of a press release.

During the crisis, management may choose to keep customers, employees, and shareholders up to date with a regular flow of information.

A contingency plan is part of a crisis strategy prepared in advance.

A back up strategy is

an action plan

The risk of being taken to court is the threat of legal action.

An acceptance of responsibility in a crisis is an admission of liability.

Following a crisis, a company may suffer a decline in loyalty from its customers, or a loss of confidence in its product or service.

Minimizing the negative effect of a crisis is known as a damage limitation.

Implement an action plan

Issue

Take

Hold

Suffer

Prepare

Control

Essential in a crisis

Important to avoid

Useful but not essential

Handle

Issue

Face

Announce

Cope with

Deal with

Reassure

A warning

A problem

A crisis

An investigation

A recall

 The public

An issue

An environmental group took legal action after the accident.

We suffer a loss of confidence after the news report about the product’s safety.

We are going to hold a press conference to explain exactly what is going on.

We need to issue a press release as soon as possible, so they don’t think we are hiding anything.

We have to control the flow of information, because everyone’s saying something different about what is going on.

Our speed of response was pretty grood. We started the recall as soon we found out about the problem.

We have to prepare a contingency plan in case the meeting with their legal team goes badly.

If we make an admission of liability, the legal cost could run into the millions.

We have implemented action after the accident.

The best we can do now is damage limitation. The situation is very bad.

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Example:

Release-  BE 4 Unit 11 : Crisis Management

Dear colleagues;

As you know, there was an item in the news this morning about a man reporting being injured by one of our blender (model NB-134).

The injury was not serious, the man has been treated and has not been hospitalized, but we are worried about the fact that it has been in the news.

If we act quickly, we will avert a crisis. Here is the plan of action:

We are going to issue a recall.

If we had done this when we had a similar problem 2 years ago, there would not have been a crisis at that time.

Had we acted more decisively then, the media coverage would have been far better.

The message regarding all of our products is this: if you follow the instructions, our products will be completely safe.

We are going to offered the injured man a settlement, but this is to remain confidential.

If we didn’t do this, he might take legal action, which would be very bad for our reputation.

He has agreed to take the settlement on the condition that he will not speak to the media about it.

We are going to hold a press conference this afternoon, to ignore the media, and we will never be able to control the flow of information.

We are also going to update our website regularly.

We are expecting a lot of phone calls, and we want to answer them.

We need to get all of our customer support people here today.

Tell us  what you need to make that happened and you will have it.

We will supply a document saying exactly what they should (and shouldn’t) say.

Should you have any questions, please contact my office to give the right resources.

Our team can stop this becoming a crisis.

Good luck to everyone.

SBY

Direct line: 6495