315 is here! Don’t turn crisis PR into a PR crisis!

The annual 315 Gala is coming soon, and for many companies, it is a day of anxiety. Over the years, the village chief has seen many companies that were exposed on March 15 and failed to properly handle their public relations, thus dragging themselves into a larger vortex of public opinion and business. So, today the village chief will talk to you about how companies should do a good job in crisis public relations in the face of this special node of March 15.

01. March 15 is not just a matter for the public relations department

For those companies that do not attach importance to 315, they often regard 315 as the business of the public relations department.

But in fact, if a slightly larger company is really exposed by 315, the people who need to participate in this crisis public relations should be all departments of the company.

For example, after a home appliance brand is exposed for product quality issues, the company's decision makers need to ask the customer service department whether it has received any customer complaints and what the previous solutions were?

The product department needs to understand whether the product really has quality problems, and the production department needs to check whether the production process is strictly carried out in accordance with production specifications.

The marketing department needs to understand the current sales of the products in the market, as well as the channels through which some complaining customers purchased and provided feedback, e-commerce channels or offline stores? How did the corresponding stores handle the matter? Does the person in charge of the branch know?

All of this is just to understand the early business situation and to facilitate informing the public.

So what happens after being exposed? Should the product be removed from the shelves? Should the user get in touch? Should the workshop stop production and undergo rectification?

All of this is not something that needs to be decided after the March 15 exposure, but all core departments should watch and make decisions together on that day.

Otherwise, the first problem faced is that once 315 is exposed, communication and decision-making cannot be made in the short term, delaying the best time to deal with the crisis.

02. Check before March 15

CCTV's 315 Gala is a mirror that exposes corporate social responsibility and a wake-up call for corporate safe operation. Any responsible company should not wait until it is exposed on 315 before taking any action.

Every enterprise can conduct self-correction and self-inspection in the areas of production, sales, and services before March 15.

Especially during the 315 period, we should increase our efforts to educate, investigate, rectify and improve possible problems in all business lines.

03. Seize the best opportunity for public relations

Once a public relations incident occurs, timing is of the utmost importance. The less timely the problem is handled, the greater the loss to the company will be.

1. Get the details as soon as possible

I said in the first point that on the day of the 315 Gala, the core members of all businesses should be together.

Once a problem is exposed, all business departments should be informed of the situation as soon as possible, and a solution should be deployed to each business department as soon as possible.

2. Contact customers as soon as possible

If there are customers involved in the complaint in this incident, you should find a way to contact the customer as soon as possible.

Be sure to send senior executives who can make decisions to contact the customer, understand the whole story, and then negotiate properly with the customer.

3. Inform the public as soon as possible

Never underestimate the negative impact of the 315 Gala, as it has a wide range of influence, lasts for a long time and has a great impact.

For the audience, they need to see the company’s attitude and explanation at the first time.

But when informing the public, two points need to be noted:

First, don’t deny it easily. Since the incident has been exposed, you should first apologize to the users and then find out the whole story in time.

The second is not to go against the emotions of users. For example, late releases, imprecise wording, strong denials and other tough behaviors will greatly anger users and will undoubtedly deepen the company's crisis again.

04. Don’t express your opinions easily

Some companies remain silent after being exposed, thinking that users will forget about it.

Some companies are too proactive in their responses and have no rules at all, both of which are big taboos in public relations.

1. Manage your boss

It is a common consensus in the public relations industry that if the boss talks less, the company’s public relations are half done.

Some business owners like to express themselves in public, but sometimes they make random comments and promises before they have time to understand the whole story, causing greater trouble for the public relations team.

2. Manage the team well

Once a negative issue occurs, all members of the corporate system, including stores, branches, and departments, should be informed, and interviews with outsiders should not be accepted at will.

Because many times, non-PR personnel are inexperienced and can easily be set up or quoted out of context during interviews.

Of course, this also requires assessing the company’s daily management, welfare, and cultural impact on its employees, otherwise it will be difficult for the company to manage its employees.

3. Manage your account well

All accounts that the company uses to publish content to the outside world, such as Weibo, official accounts, short video accounts, private WeChat accounts, and the boss's accounts, must be strictly controlled. Everything these accounts post and reply to during the public relations period should be reported and reviewed.

4. Press Spokesperson System

Of course, the prerequisite for achieving these three controls is that the company has a basic press spokesperson system.

The spokesperson for a small company is the boss himself, while for a large company it is handled by a professional public relations team.

05. Synchronize processing results in a timely manner

The more the public knows about an event, the more public attention it will receive. Therefore, for companies, the attitude to deal with a crisis is not silence, but maintaining communication.

The correct approach for enterprises should be to synchronize the process and results of handling matters in a timely manner. Of course, the premise is that it is objective and fair, without concealment, shirking or evasion.

Users want to know the truth of the matter, but in the short term they also want to see the company's attitude towards handling the problem.

As long as the matter is handled promptly, with a sincere attitude, and with openness and transparency, to be honest, users' attention will indeed be diverted, except for the closely related parties.

This mild result also has a very important premise, that is, the incident exposed by the company is not unforgivable and illegal, otherwise users will not give you a chance to whitewash yourself.

06. Provide warning education for all employees

If a company really has problems that are exposed, it should be thankful for the fact that at least society gives it a chance to correct its mistakes.

Therefore, we should take this opportunity to comprehensively investigate the hidden dangers and improprieties in the production, sales, services and other aspects of the enterprise, and make timely corrections.

At the same time, this incident should be used as a warning case and all employees should receive in-depth education and training.

Another situation is that the company was not exposed by the 315 Gala, but while celebrating, it is also necessary to mobilize and educate all employees.

Just because it has not been exposed does not mean there is no problem. Instead, we should use the 315 Gala as a mirror for all employees to learn from and resolutely prevent such incidents from happening again.

07. Every day is March 15

Although the 315 Gala is held once a year, companies must not wait until 315 to think about the problems they face.

If an enterprise wants to develop healthily, without any worries and without being caught by customers or the media, it must treat every day as March 15.

1. Improve your products and services

The full name of 315 is International Consumer Rights Day. Its core purpose is to enable all companies to practice and pay attention to the protection of consumers' rights and interests.

So what is the best way to protect yourself?

It is to provide consumers with high-quality products and services, ensure that they buy goods that are worth the money, and enjoy worry-free after-sales service when problems arise.

Such a service concept should be rooted in all products and processes from the very beginning of the company's establishment.

2. Pay attention to customer feedback

Companies should not be afraid of customers' comments, and should not avoid questions raised by customers.

Companies should be grateful that consumers point out reasonable issues to you or discover potential risks for you.

For enterprises, the most feared thing is that users do not give feedback, there is no interaction with users, and they lose customers as they come.

The village chief shared Pangdonglai’s customer service case with the villagers in the community not long ago. They directly made a customer maintenance webpage that displays the opinions and questions raised by users in real time, including the progress of processing and the relevant personnel, as well as customer evaluations.

This is actually a very smart approach, as it not only gains the trust of the customer but also alerts the team.

3. Take the initiative to carry out market supervision

When I was at Fotile, there was a large internal supervisory team that monitored many aspects of the company, including the implementation of corporate culture, integrity building, production safety, marketing promotion, product display, and pricing system.

They will go to the front line to experience the store as a customer, and will also randomly contact customers by phone to understand their service experience.

Market inspection reports are regularly issued to all employees. They are the company’s safety officers and early warning officers.

I think that even if we are just a small business, the team should develop a culture of mutual supervision and self-reflection.

4. Attach importance to cooperative relations with the media

For some mature companies, they should take the initiative to maintain good media relations, including industry media, local media, KOLs, etc.

It is not only to ensure the orderly progress of daily corporate publicity and promotion work, but also to get some professional advice from them in case of public relations crisis.

What we fear most is that some companies, when faced with public issues, take perfunctory, shirking, indifferent, impulsive and other wrong actions, turning a company's first crisis public relations behavior into a second public relations crisis for the company.

Finally, what the village chief wants to say is that only if enterprises treat every day as March 15, the real March 15 will not arrive.

Only companies that truly care about providing users with good products and services can go further.

Author: Shili Village

Source: Shili Village