{"id":5326,"date":"2018-12-04T15:01:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T15:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/?p=5326"},"modified":"2020-10-21T10:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T10:48:00","slug":"what-does-success-look-like-in-a-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocialelement.agency\/what-does-success-look-like-in-a-crisis","title":{"rendered":"What does success look like in a crisis?"},"content":{"rendered":"

PR News\u2019 recent survey on data collection in a crisis<\/span><\/a> highlighted some interesting challenges for everyone involved in crisis communications and issues\/crisis management. The big question for me, was: what does success look like in a crisis? <\/span>
\nWhen we advise companies on communicating through a crisis on social media, there are a number of ways to measure whether the crisis communication has been successful. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

Success metric 1: Avoiding the crisis altogether <\/b><\/h2>\n

In an ideal world, success is avoiding the crisis in the first place – spotting an issue early on, and managing it so effectively that it never escalates into a crisis. <\/span>
\nThat might sound far-fetched, but many issues can be spotted early, with the right tools and the right people. Social listening technology will help you scan the conversations people are having on social channels, and gather the data to find any deviance from the norm. Clearly, you will in the first instance need to know what \u2018normal\u2019 looks like, so you are only reacting to real issues. Human intelligence will interpret that data and give you insight into how and when you should act in order to mitigate the risk of a crisis breaking. <\/span>
\nOf course, that\u2019s not always possible: some crises are out of anyone\u2019s control. It is in those crises that a company\u2019s mettle is really tested. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

Success metric 2: Getting back to normal quickly <\/b><\/h2>\n

In the PR News survey, Neil Steinberg, VP of Dataminr, talks about reducing \u2018customer flight\u2019 during and after a crisis. This is something our CMO, Emma Harris talks about during her time as Marketing Chief at Eurostar: research showed that after a service outage caused by bad weather, what customers really wanted was for Eurostar to just get back to normal. They wanted the company to get through the crisis intact, so they could keep using the service. Their insight told them their loyal customers even wanted them to stop talking about, apologising for it and making assurances about the future. It was as if they wanted to forget it had ever happened. That\u2019s a sign of a great brand – if your customers are rooting for you in this way, it demonstrates how much of a trusted brand you\u2019ve built. <\/span>
\nAgain, you need to know what normal looks like – and assign a clear timeframe to when normality should be resumed. In communications terms, you can track things like: <\/span><\/p>\n