One morning, the COO of a senior living company got blindsided. He awoke to find a story in the local newspaper charging appalling living conditions at one of his company’s communities. But before he even arrived at work, the community’s PR person had gathered the facts that refuted the story. Read more about how this crisis management plan worked …
“By the time I got to my boss’s office that
morning, I already had all the facts,” he says.
As part of the PR strategy that morning, Cox immediately
opened the community’s doors to the media, giving them open
access.
“The plan for the media was not to have them sit with me and
give them a speech,” Cox explains. “The plan was to have them talking
to the residents and talking to the staff, to legitimize the facts we
had already given them.”
So instead of sprouting legs and running all over the media,
the original story dwindled away in just two days—largely because
assisted living executives had been prepared and knew what their public
relations strategy would be in case of crisis. This happy-ending
example drives home the point that senior living companies should have
a PR crisis plan in place long before the unthinkable happens.
Reality Bites
Communications consultant Chris Black
has played a major role in developing the soon-to-be
released ALFA Public Relations Guide & Tool
Kit, which focuses on crisis situations for assisted living
communities. A reporter for more than 30 years with stints at CNN and
the Boston Globe, Black knows firsthand the
importance of a well-planned approach to the media in times of
calamity. She also knows how easy it is to get burned.
“People think they can ignore the media, but it doesn’t work.
If there is an allegation of wrongdoing and it goes unrefuted, people
will assume it is true,” Black says. “If you don’t respond to a charge,
it becomes reality in terms of public opinion. So you have to be in the
mix; your side has to be told in the first story.”
In February, mere allegations of sexual abuse successfully
shut down a Texas assisted living community. The operator of the
community “could not be reached for comment,” according to the local
paper. That left three paragraphs detailing the allegations. However,
the silence in this example was not surprising, Black says, considering
the size of the assisted living company.
“The nature of small businesses is that they pretty much don’t
know how to deal with the press,” she adds, and there is a lot that
smaller providers can learn from their bigger cousins when it comes to
managing spin.
Consider McLean, Virginia-based Sunrise Senior
Living, where Former Director of Corporate Communications
Jamison Gosselin worked hard to craft
an effective PR response program. That program was unfortunately put
into play in 2005, when Hurricane Rita forced the evacuation of 38
residents and six staff members from the Brighton Gardens assisted
living community in the Houston suburb of Bellaire, Texas. One of the
chartered buses transporting residents burst into flames, killing 20.
Setting aside for a moment the tragedy of the situation, it
could have been a PR nightmare for the company. Yet the
Houston Business Journal published these comments:
“Sunrise has been devastated by this tragedy,” said Paul Klaassen,
founder, chairman and CEO of Sunrise. “…Our primary concern is for the
safety of our residents and we are shocked and saddened that this event
occurred during our evacuation.” CNN and USA Today
ran the same quotes.
“It was the teamwork,” Gosselin says, that allowed the
company’s message to get through. “Within the typical crisis plan, you
break things out by discipline: You have your risk-management plan,
your legal plan. But in a crisis PR plan, all those things have to come
together.”
In a crisis, “we will bring subject matter experts into the
loop, we will meet either over a conference call, or e-mail, or over
the phone” to formulate a response. That combined effort crafts a
coherent message for Gosselin, and also provides direction for
executive directors and community-level staff who also may be facing a
media push.
Answering the Call
A corporate PR plan often stifles a quick local response in a
time of crisis. Local managers receive directives or advice like,
“Don’t be pressured into providing information,” and, “Don’t talk out
of turn.” In other words: Leave the media hanging.
“It happens all the time: Whoever happens to answer the phone
blurts out the wrong thing, someone who isn’t authorized to talk to the
media and doesn’t know what to say,” Black says. It’s a simple
occurrence. Someone comes to the front desk asking questions, or calls
without identifying himself as a reporter. One’s reflex is to answer.
Gosselin has taken steps to forestall any such gaffe in
anticipation of any potential crisis by crafting an emergency PR
brochure for the company’s executive directors. “Basically the job of
these talking points is to buy the executive directors time” should
they be unable to reach headquarters for more specific instructions, he
says.
If one simply must address an issue at the local level,
certain remarks are bound to be harmless. “Safety is our top priority…
We are taking all necessary actions…We will provide further details as
soon as they are available.” This way, the company will have at least
some voice in whatever story may run. It’s a way of showing that you
have nothing to hide, even if you have nothing to say yet.
By the same token, Gosselin provides executive directors with
information on what not to say to the press in a crisis. For example,
if you don’t know the facts, don’t speculate. “That allows the media to
start drawing their own conclusions, which is not desirable,” Gosselin
explains. Don’t talk about damages or insurance coverage, “and never
admit liability,” he adds. Those are topics for the legal department to
handle.
Still, it is possible to express legitimate concern. “There
are ways you can say you are sorry for things, without saying, ‘It is
our fault.’ Typically there are two sides to any story,” says Gosselin.
Trickle-Down Strategy
The corporate-level response to a crisis situation is a
critical first step, allowing the company to develop coherent themes
and consistent messaging through a joint effort that may include legal,
financial, communications, and other executives.
Then, at the local level, executive directors can be prepared
with several broad comments they can safely make, along with
instructions to refer all media back to the home office—at least until
further notice or additional information is available. While you expect
the crisis response to stop there, professionals deeper within the
local operational structure also must be prepared to respond to crises.
At Baltimore-based Senior Resource
Group, Corporate Director of Sales Eve
Mailly is an integral part of the crisis PR food chain.
In part, it has to do with the nature of a small organization—sales
equals marketing equals public relations. It’s all on the same side of
the house. Therefore, a media call can easily land on Mailly’s desk or
the desk of another member of the sales team. Even if the front desk
has been briefed, the typical pattern is for people asking questions
about the property to be sent in the direction of sales. Unfortunately,
if staff members aren’t prepared, things could easily go downhill from
there.
To that extent, crisis planning involves frequent reminders to
salespeople, front desk staff, and other public-facing players to keep
mum in an emergency. At the same time, Mailly sees her sales staff as
being a sort of follow-up PR brigade, once the immediate threat has
passed. If the goal of PR in times of calamity is reputation
management, then sales is particularly well-positioned to carry on with
that work after
the fact.
When prospective residents and their families call in the
aftermath of a disaster, “everyone will be looking for answers, and the
sales staff can project a tone that says everything is under control,
that things will return to normal very quickly,” Mailly says.
A solid planning effort will include the understanding that,
once the waves have settled down, it will be the salespeople who once
again puff up the sails. “They need to be as knowledgeable as they can
be about the incident, so that when that fear factor comes into play in
people, their counseling skills also can really come into play,” Mailly
adds.
In all of this, planning is essential. All crises have in
common a sense of urgency, the need to take action now. That means
executives are apt to be bailing out the basement even while they are
busy explaining to the media how the flood happened. Knowing that
things are going to happen fast, if and when they do happen, the
smartest thing leaders can do is to lay out the roadmap in advance, so
that everyone will know which way to go once the scurrying starts.
Planning for the Worst Case
What should a crisis PR plan look like? Here are some of the
guidelines laid out in the upcoming ALFA Tool Kit:
- Never ever say, “No comment.”
It always backfires, creating the impression you are
stonewalling or trying to hide something. - Activate your leadership team.
You need your best and brightest people in order to deal
with the problem and keep operations at the community level moving
smoothly. - Find out exactly what
happened, when, why, and how. Work cooperatively with
investigative authorities to discover the cause of a theft, assault, or
fire. - Stress your
sympathy. Reporters writing news stories in a rush tend
to overlook nuance and write in stark black and white terms that put
elderly residents on the “good” side and a negligent provider on the
“bad” side. You want to be on the good side. You care about the health
and well-being of
all your residents. Be explicit in stating that the safety and welfare
of your residents is your first concern. - Respond to all press calls
quickly. Someone needs to call every reporter back, find
out his or her deadline, and promise a statement by deadline. Reporters
are trained to get both sides and will want to include your comments.
If they are told to expect a response, they will likely wait for it
until their deadline. - Designate a
spokesperson. It’s best to have one person speaking for
the company. More than one voice confuses an already chaotic situation. - Draft a statement.
Politicians are always encouraged by their handlers to stick to their
message and talking points, and with good reason. Reporters will always
try to get you to say more. Some will try to put their words in your
mouth. That is their job. But you cannot get in trouble for something
you did not say, unless you deliberately withhold a key piece of
information.
