Crisis comms: what to do when bad news hits

In the first hour, make three calls before anyone drafts a word: confirm the facts, name a single spokesperson, and pick a posture (address it, contain it, or wait it out). Get those three right and most startup crises burn out in 48 to 72 hours. Get them wrong and the story stretches into weeks. Speed and honesty beat polish.

What only you can decide

A PR firm routes the press and keeps you from making it worse. It cannot make the judgment calls, and you should not let it. You own four:

• Respond or stay silent - whether this clears the bar for a public statement, or only grows because you touched it.
• The one fact you won't spin - partial honesty reads as a cover-up. Decide up front which uncomfortable truth gets told plainly.
• The single spokesperson - one voice, usually yours. Two voices hand reporters a contradiction to write about.
• What you'll concede - the apology, refund, or fix you can actually ship. Never promise one you can't.

The first 24 hours, in order

• Confirm the facts - a correction you issue yourself is survivable; one a reporter catches becomes the new story.
• Name the spokesperson - and route every inbound call to that person, including the ones to your investors.
• Set a holding line - "we're aware and investigating" buys hours without committing to facts you can't yet stand behind.
• Respond on the record - leave silence and the angriest version of events fills it.

How to recognize good crisis help

The firm worth hiring slows you down before it speeds you up: it pressure-tests your facts, tells you when not to comment, and protects the reporter relationships you'll need next year. Be wary of any firm whose first move is a glossy statement. A fast statement built on unconfirmed facts is how a one-day story becomes a one-week story.

The leverage is in the work you do before anything goes wrong. Most companies will need it: in PwC's global survey, about 7 in 10 leaders had weathered a corporate crisis in the past five years, and smaller companies are the least likely to have a plan ready when it hits. Crisis help bought mid-crisis is the most expensive PR there is; the crisis communications page in the Service Menu covers what emergency engagements cost and how readiness retainers compare. Mapping your three most likely crises and agreeing on who says what takes an afternoon and costs a fraction of an emergency engagement.