Crisis communications before, during and after

Crisis planning is charged at $175 + GST an hour. A plan with holding statements gets a fixed quote after the discovery call. A small business with a few likely scenarios needs far fewer hours than a multi-site organisation. Marketing partnerships, from $4,500 + GST a month, include critical communications.

Crisis communication is how an organisation talks to its staff, customers, stakeholders and the media when something serious goes wrong. It means sharing what you know, what you're doing about it and when you'll update, quickly and honestly. Done well, it protects trust while you fix the actual problem.

A useful plan names your likeliest scenarios, your spokesperson and who approves statements. It also lists who must hear first: staff, board, regulators and key customers. Add holding statements for each scenario and simple rules for social media. Keep it short, because nobody reads a 40-page manual mid-crisis.

A single crisis communications consultant can write a plan, but a crisis rarely respects one person's holidays. A crisis communications firm gives you more than one experienced person to call. With us that's Andrew and Emma, both with journalism backgrounds, plus the wider team for social media and design.

It helps you work out what to say, to whom and in what order, then writes it. That means adapting holding statements, preparing your spokesperson, answering journalists, updating social media and monitoring coverage. A good crisis comms agency also tells you when to stay quiet, because not every problem needs a public statement.

Cyber incidents move fast and the facts emerge slowly, so you'll often speak before you know everything. There may also be legal duties to notify affected people under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. Messages must be accurate, avoid speculation and give people practical steps, such as changing passwords.

Close, but not quite. In our partnership plans, critical communications means the urgent messages a business has to get right, from incidents to recalls and closures. The term also describes emergency-service radio networks, which isn't something we do. Crisis communication is the bigger-picture planning and response.

No. Nobody can ethically stop a journalist reporting something newsworthy. What we can do is make sure your side is told accurately, quickly and in plain words. If a clear reply on Facebook and a call to the people affected will settle it, we'll tell you before we quote for anything bigger.