2010 was a busy time for crisis communicators. But amid the panic, there were some salutary lessons to take away which should help brands steel themselves against corporate catastrophes, says Jim Preen

This past year has not been easy for some organisations. Just ask Eurostar, Toyota and BP.

A year ago Eurostar was struggling to rescue passengers stuck on trains in the channel Tunnel, Toyota was forced into perhaps the biggest product recall in history and BP now has its name linked to the worst environmental catastrophe on record following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And to see in the New Year, we have WikiLeaks.

These crises make for uncomfortable reading, but what can we draw from them?

Take last winter’s Eurostar crisis, when five northbound Eurostar trains broke down inside the channel tunnel. Over 2,000 passengers were trapped. At least 100,000 passengers were affected.

During the crisis, communications between Eurostar and their passengers were terrible.

One exasperated passenger said: “I’m stuck here in Brussels and the information flow is appalling. The front line staff are not being told anything at all and are just telling people to contact customer services. People are getting information phoned through from the UK by people watching the BBC!”

Crisis lesson 1: Be social media savvy

The anger and hatred poured on to the Twittersphere and Facebook, which soon featured a ‘We hate Eurostar’ group. Prior to the crisis the only Twitter handles in use by Eurostar were: @little_break and @creamoflondon.

These were not normal communication tools, let alone crisis communication tools. This was marketing. @little_break referred to Eurostar’s marketing campaign, Little Break – Big Difference, and was run by social networking agency We Are Social which had been working with Eurostar sales.

Social media is an unrivalled conduit for getting information out fast to huge numbers of people, but organisations need to have plans and protocols in place to enable them to do this before crisis hits.

You can be sure that social media will take charge of a crisis – as it did with Eurostar – if the company doesn’t.

Crisis lesson 2: Have the right person in charge

Unlike Eurostar, BP responded to the Deepwater Horizon crisis by making good use of its communication toolkit. Its website was well designed, full of well produced content, and stocked with helpful resources. At the time, anyone accessing www.BP.com was automatically redirected to the Oil Spill response page. There were also links to its offerings on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Of course, the enormity of this crisis meant it couldn’t be spun. What this crisis called for was a tough and straight-talking CEO who tackled the emergency head-on. Unfortunately, Tony Hayward was not up to the task.

He did untold damage to BP’s reputation with his celebrated gaffes about how he ‘wanted his life back’. It is one thing to be a CEO in normal times, quite another during a crisis. Hayward appeared weak and defensive and was ultimately brushed aside.

Choosing the right person to become the public face of an organisation is no easy task. It must be somebody who is not only comfortable speaking to stockholders at the AGM, but also able to face the media in full cry along with angry members of the public and an openly hostile government.

Crisis lesson 3: Get the facts quickly

Let’s look at Toyota’s recalls. Among the more troubling aspects of the crisis were the company’s differing accounts of the sources of the problem: it was sticky accelerator pedals, then pedals stuck on floor mats, then it was software problems.

From a PR perspective, this meant Toyota was constantly playing catch-up. Members of the press and often the wider public seemed to set the news agenda.

Toyota never took control of the story – it seemed unable to set out the facts and be straight with its customers. The crisis always seemed to control Toyota rather than Toyota controlling the crisis. The public must never be allowed to think that a company is putting profits ahead of customer safety.

Crisis lesson 4: Digital communication is not secure

Earlier in 2010, Hillary Clinton made a landmark speech about internet freedom, which many interpreted as a rebuke to China for its alleged cyber attack on Google. “Information has never been so free,” she said. “Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.”

But then came Wikileaks. Clinton now refers to these disclosures as “not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests, but an attack on the international community”. It seems in the ‘Land of the Free’ freedom of information is not always welcome.

Now that information can be digitized, an email containing millions of words can be transmitted in the blink of an eye. So what can business learn from these events? Modern forms of modern communication are far from secure. Remember how easy it was for The News Of The World to hack into celebrity voicemails?

Crisis lesson 5: Speed is not always of the essence

WikiLeaks has shown us that the great and the good behave in remarkably similar ways to us lesser mortals. They fire off irritated and irritating emails just like us – it is so easy to do.

When you had to write a letter it took time and was a more considered form of communication. Now an angry or indeed libellous response to an email can be shot back at your adversary at warp speed – not always to their or subsequently your delight. What was said in haste becomes a document of record so pause, count to ten, have a cup of tea and then communicate. Speed is not always of the essence.

Crisis lesson 6: Embrace new media

There are many other lessons to be learnt from these four crises, but if I had to choose only one going forward, it is the importance of being conversant with social media. Companies must scoop up all the Twitter handles that pertain to them and have Facebook and YouTube pages. These are some of the most effective and farreaching forms of communication, but an emergency is not the time to become familiar with them. Use them in normal times and they could just save you in a crisis.

Jim Preen is media consultant at Crisis Solutions: www.crisis-solutions.com