In the post-crisis phase, the brand organization is returning to business as usual. The crisis is no longer the focal point of management's attention but still requires some attention. In this post-crisis phase, is when reputation repair is initiated or continued. There is important follow-up communication that is required. First, PR practitioners must follow through on informational promises or risk losing the trust of publics. Next, the organization should update publics on the recovery process, corrective actions, and or investigations of the crisis. The amount of follow-up communication required depends on the amount of information promised during the crisis and the length of time it takes to complete the recovery process. Consider Chipotle and its food safety crisis a few years ago. Although Chipotle is through the crisis, the brand is still in the post-crisis recovery phase, carrying out the promises made to consumers and publicly being accountable for changes in the organization. After a crisis, stakeholders will be reevaluating their opinions of the brand or organization. Reputations that have been built over many years even decades, can be destroyed in a matter of days or minutes. Rebuilding trust and recovering reputation can take time depending on the severity of the crisis. This means that stakeholder relationships become even more important than before. Brands want to show that performance is once again meeting expectations. Remember, reputation is in the delivery not in the brand promise. The best way then to recovery is to get to delivery and again, walk the walk, don't just talk the talk. Of course, this does not mean the brands and organizations should not communicate during the recovery phase. Messaging in post-crisis recovery should be the proof points with stakeholders, both internal and external. Many companies overlook internal audiences, period. That's even true absent of a crisis situation. Some brands don't even put effort toward internal audiences, which is a mistake. Employees are a huge asset to your brand if you build strong relationships with them. Employees are your best brand ambassadors, but only if you cultivate that relationship and grow in that idea of two-way mutually beneficial relationships. In post-crisis recovery, much attention should be paid to the internal audience and rebuilding trust at home first. As a PR practitioner, you want to dissect and analyze the crisis situation that happened from start to finish. You want to question the process, the effectiveness of the response, and make changes to the plan for future crises. But after every crisis, lies the opportunity to change. The purpose of change is not just to rebuild trust, but to affect fundamental change and improve the brand's direction, purpose, values, and strategy. Because so much of what we do is online now, I just wanted to briefly include some direction for your digital brand communications. A San Francisco based media intelligence firm named Zignal Labs, suggested, every crisis needs to be managed with three key digital factors in mind, volume, velocity, and variety. These are in addition to the traditional crisis communication response we discussed in previous videos. Volume refers to the amount of data out there about the crisis. Examples include: media mentions, shares, and posts on social media. Velocity is the speed at which the data is generated. Tweets per second or online new stories per hour. Variety refers to the types of data being generated and the platforms that the data is being shared on. Examples include: images and hashtags on Instagram and Twitter, or tweets, or videos on YouTube, or the new stories posted and shared. According to Zignal, three trends are true for every modern-day crisis. First, a modern crisis is fueled by data. Well, the nature of crises have not changed over the years, what has changed is the digital channels through which a crisis spreads. These channels offer the fast and furious spread of information. For any crisis large or small, brands have to be prepared for the massive, volume, velocity, and variety of digital information that comes in its wake. Second, conventional approaches alone no longer work in crisis management. Lastly, data provides the blueprint for a solution. Data reveals trends, patterns, and insights in the wake of a crisis. Data can be a brand's biggest threat during a crisis but also the path to a solution. So cross-functional teams must be in place to handle the volume, velocity, and variety of data during a crisis.
