Taking fire – how to protect your staff and your reputation

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

A poor response in a crisis is one of the easiest ways for an organisation to ruin the reputation it has worked hard to develop. That’s why planning for crisis, and thinking carefully about how to respond to any issues that you know have the potential to damage your reputation is so vitally important.

A core part of that is making sure you know who should speak about an issue – and who should not.

Your frontline staff, from receptionists to shop workers, represent your brand in public and are much more accessible than your senior management team. They can easily become the first port of call for someone wanting to ask difficult questions; but it’s neither wise, nor fair, to expect them to have the right answers.

We advise our clients to think about who journalists, or irate members of the public, might contact and to clearly let them know how they should respond. By arming them with the information they need, you can protect them – and your reputation – from inadvertently saying something that doesn’t represent what your organisation believes, or its values.

Here are some of the key points to tell them:

• Be courteous and helpful. The caller will often have a legitimate concern and it’s important that the organisation addresses this in a reasonable timeframe. Make sure all your staff know exactly who the best person from your organisation is to respond, can reassure the person they are speaking to that they will pass on their question or complaint, and let them know when they can expect a response. A journalist may want an immediate answer, so frontline staff should escalate any calls from a reporter to the press office as soon as possible.

• Don’t get sucked in. Whether they’re speaking to a journalist, a beneficiary or a member of the public asking tricky questions, your frontline staff should always politely and firmly tell them that they cannot help them with their query, but they will pass it on to someone who can. Make sure they know that anything they say could be taken as an official comment.

• Be canny. The person on the other end of the phone or on the shop floor may not be who they say they are and may well be trying to catch you out. It’s not uncommon for journalists or campaigners to pose as members of the public.

• Don’t be afraid to shut down the conversation. This can be particularly difficult when someone is abusive or upset, but while it’s important for a staff member to be polite and compassionate, they should never have to take abuse. Unless they are employed as a counsellor, they should also avoid acting like one, both for the sake of the person they are speaking to and their own mental health. Many charities will have vulnerable beneficiaries, so your staff should always know how to put them in contact with the right person to help them if they are in distress – but also how to end the conversation if they cannot help.

It’s wise to provide a script and contact details for your staff so that they know who to access; training videos are another helpful way to illustrate the kinds of questions they might receive and how they can best respond. We can help you develop these, so get in touch if you’d like to know more.