Questions to Ask When Preparing for Crisis Communications
For a communications lead, founder or leadership team writing a crisis communications plan before anything has gone wrong. The questions are ones to put to yourselves and to your lawyers, HR and PR advisers, and they run in the order the planning goes: which crises are likely, who decides and who speaks, who must hear first, what can be said and when, which channels carry it, and how the plan gets rehearsed and reviewed.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Risks
Which crises are most likely to happen to an organization like ours?
Why ask it
Start here and turn the answers into a written list of named scenarios, such as a data breach, a workplace injury, a product recall or a leader's misconduct. A worrying answer is 'it depends', or the one scenario everybody already fears. Put the question to operations, legal, HR and customer support separately, because each of them sees a different set of risks.
Of the crises we can name, which would do the most damage, and which do we plan for first?
Why ask it
Rank the list twice, once by damage and once by likelihood, and plan first for whatever sits near the top of both. Teams tend to prepare for the dramatic event and get caught by the ordinary one, like an angry post from a former employee. If leadership cannot agree on the ranking, that disagreement is worth settling now.
What do we already know about ourselves that would be a story if it came out?
Why ask it
This is the uncomfortable one, and it belongs in a small room. A useful answer names specifics: an old complaint, a known product flaw, a dispute that was settled quietly. Ask your lawyer beforehand how the conversation and any notes from it should be handled, and if the room says 'nothing', ask whoever has been at the company longest.
Where is the line between a bad day and a crisis?
Why ask it
Without a written threshold, every complaint becomes an emergency or the real one gets treated as routine. A workable answer lists triggers, such as harm to a person, a regulator getting involved, a reporter's call or an outage past a set length. Two or three levels can help, as long as the plan says who is allowed to declare each one.
How would we find out something was wrong, and how long would the news take to reach us?
Why ask it
Trace the path from the person likely to see the problem first, often a support agent, a site supervisor or someone on the night shift, to a person with authority to act. Three or four layers of management in between is the worrying answer. Give front-line staff one number or address to report to, and tell them nobody is punished for a false alarm.
What has gone wrong for our competitors or peers, and how did they handle it?
Why ask it
Another organization's bad week is free rehearsal material. Pick two cases from your own sector, read the first public statement each one made, and ask what you would have said in their place and how fast. If nobody can name a case, have someone find three before the next meeting.
Which crises could start outside the company, with a supplier, a partner or a platform we rely on?
Why ask it
You can end up in the news for something you did not do: a vendor's breach that exposes your customers, a contractor's accident on your site. Ask each key partner whether they would tell you before speaking publicly, and who their contact would be at night. If the answer is vague, look at what the contract says about notice the next time it comes up for renewal.
What would we do if the crisis were about one of our own leaders?
Why ask it
Plans usually assume the chief executive is running the response, which fails when the chief executive is the subject. Decide now who takes over, who informs the board and who is kept out of the decisions. If the room goes quiet at this one, raise it privately with the board chair or an outside adviser.
Which slow problems could become a crisis without a single dramatic day?
Why ask it
Not every crisis arrives as an event. A run of bad reviews, a pattern of staff complaints or a safety concern raised twice and shelved can build for months. Ask HR and customer support what they keep hearing, and agree how many repeats send an issue up to leadership.
Who decides
Who is on the crisis team, by name, and who is each person's backup?
Why ask it
Job titles alone are not enough, because 'head of legal' cannot be phoned. A good answer is a short list, usually a decision maker plus communications, legal, HR and operations, with a named stand-in for each. Keep it small enough to gather within minutes, and check that the backups know they are backups.
Who has the final say on a public statement when the team disagrees?
Why ask it
Legal will often want to say less and communications more, and somebody has to break the tie quickly. 'We would reach consensus' is the answer to worry about. Name one person, name who decides if that person cannot be reached, and write both into the plan.
How do we reach every member of the team at 2 a.m. on a holiday weekend?
Why ask it
Test this one instead of answering it: send an unannounced message outside working hours and time the replies. Personal cell numbers, a conference line that never changes and a backup channel IT has approved that does not depend on the company network all help. Anyone slower than you can afford needs a backup who picks up.
Who speaks for us in public, and is it always the most senior person?
Why ask it
The chief executive carries weight when people have been hurt or trust is at stake, but a technical outage may be better explained by whoever runs the system. Choose a primary spokesperson and at least one alternate for each kind of scenario on your list. Rank matters less than staying calm and plain under a hostile question.
If the police, emergency services or a regulator are speaking publicly too, who on our side coordinates with them?
Why ask it
In an accident, a crime or a public health matter, an agency may lead on what the public is told and may ask you to hold back some details, such as names. How that works differs by agency and place, so have the person you name introduce themselves to the local contacts in a quiet week and ask. Two versions of the same event, one from you and one from them, is the outcome to avoid.
What should everyone who is not a spokesperson say when they are asked?
Why ask it
Reporters, customers and neighbors will ask the receptionist, the driver and the sales rep. Give staff one sentence and one place to send inquiries, and explain the reason for it. Before this becomes a written policy, ask HR and your lawyer how far a rule about employees speaking publicly can go where you operate.
What can the communications lead publish without waiting for approval?
Why ask it
The first holding statement often has to go out before the full team has gathered. Agree in advance what can be released on one person's authority, typically an acknowledgment that something happened and a time for the next update. If the answer is 'nothing', work out how long approval really takes at night and whether you can live with that much silence.
Which outside advisers do we already have lined up, and who is allowed to call them?
Why ask it
Finding a crisis PR firm, an outside lawyer or a forensic IT team in the middle of an incident costs hours. List who you would call, whether an agreement is already signed and their after-hours number. Read your insurance policy as well, or ask your broker: some policies name their own advisers or expect notice before you hire anyone, and yours may or may not.
Who keeps the record of what we knew, what we decided and what we said?
Why ask it
One person should log times, decisions and every statement as it goes out, so that later updates do not contradict earlier ones. How that record is kept and who may see it is a matter for your lawyer, because the answer changes with the place and the kind of incident. A team with no note-taker ends up rebuilding its own week from memory.
Who can approve spending in the first day, and up to what amount?
Why ask it
A hotline for affected customers, an outside firm, overtime for the support team or a refund offer may all need paying for before the finance office opens. Set a limit that one named person can approve alone, and say who approves above it. If the room's answer is the usual purchase order, the plan has a delay built into it.
Who hears first
Who must hear it from us before they see it anywhere else?
Why ask it
List every group with a stake: employees, the people directly affected, customers, the board, investors, regulators, partners, neighbors. Then mark the ones who would feel betrayed to learn it from the news. Employees are easy to leave off, and they are the people everyone else will ask.
In what order do we tell each group, and how much time passes between them?
Why ask it
A common pattern is those harmed first, then staff, then customers and partners, then the public, with minutes between them and not hours, since anything told to one group soon reaches the next. Write the order out for each scenario. A layoff and a product recall do not share a first phone call.
Who contacts the people directly harmed, and what are they able to offer?
Why ask it
Someone who has been hurt, or whose data or money is involved, should hear from a human being with real information and some authority, not a form letter. Decide who makes that contact and what help they can promise on the spot. Agree the opening words with legal in a quiet week, so the caller is not improvising them.
How will employees hear, and from whom?
Why ask it
An all-staff email from a no-reply address is the weak answer. Better is a short message from a leader they know, followed by managers who have talking points and a way to pass questions up. Remember the people who are not at a desk: shift workers, drivers, anyone on leave.
Do we have to notify a regulator, an insurer, a lender or a contract partner, and by what deadline?
Why ask it
Notification duties and their clocks differ by country, state, industry and the contracts you have signed, so put this to your lawyer for each scenario and do not guess. Ask for a one-page table: who, how soon, in what form and who sends it. A plan that says 'notify authorities as required' has not answered the question.
What do the board and investors need to hear, and who tells them?
Why ask it
Directors do not like learning about trouble from a reporter's call. Settle who phones the chair, at what threshold and what a first briefing covers. For a publicly traded company, or one with outside investors, ask counsel which disclosure rules apply and when, because those vary and the stakes are high.
Which customers or partners get a phone call instead of an email?
Why ask it
Your largest accounts and closest partners will judge you on whether someone picked up the phone. Make the list now, assign each name to a person who already knows them, and give those callers the same facts everyone else receives. A big account with no owner next to it is the thing to fix.
Who might speak up for us, and have we built that relationship before we need it?
Why ask it
A customer, an industry body, a local official or a respected former employee has a credibility no company statement has, but only if they hear the facts from you early. You cannot recruit them in the middle of a crisis. Note who they are, who knows them and whether they have heard from you this year for any reason other than a favor.
What we say
What can we say in the first hour, before the facts are clear?
Why ask it
Usually three things: that you know something has happened, what you are doing about it right now, and when you will say more. A sound holding statement makes no guess about cause or scale. Draft one for each scenario on your list and time how long it takes to adapt.
Which statements can we draft now and leave with blanks to fill?
Why ask it
Holding statements, a staff message, a customer email, a social post and a short script for whoever answers the phones can all be written in a quiet week. Get legal's comments on the templates now, so that review on the day is about the blanks and not the tone. Templates nobody outside communications has read are the warning sign.
What do we want every audience to hear from us, whatever the crisis turns out to be?
Why ask it
These are your standing messages, two or three lines that would hold in any scenario: the people affected come first, here is what we are doing, we will tell you what we learn. Check each draft statement against them, and if it carries none of them, it is not finished. If the first line anyone offers is about protecting the brand, keep working.
What will we never say, no matter how bad it gets?
Why ask it
Agree the list in advance: no guessing at causes, no blaming an individual before the facts are in, no numbers you cannot stand behind, no promise that it will never happen again. Add the phrases your own sector reaches for under pressure, such as 'an isolated incident' or 'a small number of customers', unless you could prove them. A written list makes it easier to refuse a panicked request to say one of these things.
When would we apologize, and what can an apology say?
Why ask it
People who were affected tend to listen for whether you acknowledge the harm before they hear anything else. How an apology is treated in a later dispute differs from place to place, so ask your lawyer how it works where you operate and agree on wording now. When legal and communications have this argument for the first time mid-crisis, the statement that comes out tends to sound like neither of them.
How long does legal get with a draft before it goes out?
Why ask it
Put a number on it. An agreed window, with a named lawyer on call and a backup, makes review a step in the process and not the place where everything stops. If counsel cannot commit to a time, ask what they would need to see in a template today to make review quick later.
What are the questions we least want to be asked, and what is the honest answer to each?
Why ask it
Write down the worst ones for every scenario: did you know, why did it take so long, who is responsible, has it happened before. Then write truthful answers, including 'we do not know yet, and here is when we expect to'. An answer that only works if nobody follows up is not ready.
What do we say when we are not able to comment?
Why ask it
Investigations, privacy rules, court cases and respect for a family can all limit what you say, and your lawyer should tell you which of them apply. The stronger response explains why you cannot speak and offers what you can say instead. Practice it aloud, because a refusal that reads fine on paper can sound evasive when spoken.
How will we correct ourselves if something we said turns out to be wrong?
Why ask it
Early information is often wrong, and the fix is judged as closely as the first statement. Plan for corrections to go out on the same channels as the original, to say plainly what changed, and to leave the earlier post up with a note where the platform allows it. A team that intends to edit quietly and hope has chosen the riskier path.
How often will we update people, even when nothing has changed?
Why ask it
Silence gets filled with other people's guesses. Commit to a rhythm, say it in public ('our next update will be at 3 p.m.'), and keep to it even when the update is that there is no news. Choose an interval you can meet at night and on weekends.
How will we keep track of the promises we make under pressure?
Why ask it
A refund, an investigation, a new safety check: every commitment in a statement is something people will come back and ask about. Keep a running list with an owner and a date beside each, and plan a follow-up message for when it is done. Check each promise with the person who would have to deliver it before it goes into a statement.
Channels
Where is the one place anyone can find our latest, correct information?
Why ask it
Pick a single home, often a page on your own website, and point every other channel to it, so that a post, an email and a phone script cannot drift apart. Ask whether someone on the crisis team can publish that page without a developer. Ask too whether it would stay up under a surge of visitors.
Who holds the logins to our website, social accounts and email tools, and who else can get in?
Why ask it
The honest answer is frequently one marketing coordinator and an agency. Check that at least two people on the crisis team can post to each channel, that access does not hang on one person's phone, and that former staff and old vendors have been removed. Go through the list again whenever someone leaves.
What happens to scheduled posts, ads and marketing emails the moment a crisis is declared?
Why ask it
A cheerful promotion landing an hour after bad news is a second story you could have avoided. Somebody needs both the authority and the access to pause everything in every tool, including what agencies and regional teams have queued. Make the pause a named step in the first fifteen minutes, with a list of where the queues are.
Can our support team handle a surge of calls and messages, and what will they be told to say?
Why ask it
The people answering phones and chats will speak to more of the public than any spokesperson will. Ask who can add staff or extend hours quickly, and how fast a script and a short list of answers can reach every agent, including an outsourced team. Agents who learn the news from a caller are the sign that this step is missing.
How do we reach staff and customers if email or our own website is the thing that has failed?
Why ask it
Have a second route for each audience: text messages, a phone tree, a status page hosted somewhere else, a social account. Ask IT where a current copy of key contacts lives outside the main systems, since in a cyberattack the customer database and the staff directory may be exactly what you cannot open. Whether you may text people, and on what consent, depends on the rules where you operate, so check before you rely on it.
Who is watching what is being said about us, and what are they told to escalate?
Why ask it
Monitoring covers news, social platforms, review sites, the support queue and what staff are hearing. Assign people in shifts, not one person for three days, with a simple rule for what goes to the team at once: a reporter's inquiry, a claim of injury, a post spreading fast. Have them report what is not being said as well, so you do not answer a question nobody asked.
How do reporters reach us, and who answers at night?
Why ask it
A press inbox that gets read on Monday is how a fair story becomes 'the company did not respond'. Publish one media contact, route it to a phone that somebody carries, and decide how quickly an acknowledgment goes back. If the website has no media contact at all, that is a job for this week.
Will we reply to individual comments and messages, or only post statements?
Why ask it
Either can be right, but it has to be a choice. Replying shows people they are being heard and takes many hands; statements alone are easier to control and can look cold. A team that replies needs approved lines, a rule for moving personal details into private messages and permission to leave abuse unanswered.
Which languages and formats do our audiences need, and who produces them at short notice?
Why ask it
A statement in one language, posted as an image of text, misses customers and staff who read another language or use a screen reader. Line up translators before you need them, and have a fluent speaker read anything machine-translated, because a wrong word in a safety notice can do harm. Templates translated in advance save the most time.
What will we do about rumors and false claims?
Why ask it
Not every false post deserves an answer, since replying can carry it further. Set a test: is it reaching your actual customers or staff, could it cause harm, has a reporter asked about it. When you do correct something, lead with the true version stated plainly, and keep the rumor out of your own headline.
Rehearse and review
When will we first run a practice scenario, and who has to be in the room?
Why ask it
Until it has been rehearsed, a plan is only a document. Set a date, block two hours, and require the actual decision makers and their backups, not delegates. Ask your PR adviser or an outside facilitator to run the session so the communications lead can take part instead of refereeing.
Which scenario would we least like to practice?
Why ask it
That is usually the one to run. Teams drift toward the drill they feel good about and away from the scenario that involves a leader's conduct or a known weakness. If the room resists, start with something milder and put the hard one on the calendar for the second session.
Who needs media training, and when did they last answer a hard question on camera?
Why ask it
Everyone named as a spokesperson or an alternate should be filmed taking hostile questions and should watch the recording. A capable executive can still come across as defensive or cold under pressure, and a practice room is the place to find that out. Training from years ago counts as not done.
Where does the plan live, and can everyone open it from a phone with the office network down?
Why ask it
A plan on a shared drive, behind a login that depends on company systems, may be out of reach on the day it is needed. Keep a short version, with the call list and the first-hour steps, where each team member can open it offline, and a printed copy at home. Then ask each person to show you theirs.
Who owns the plan, and how often are the names and numbers checked?
Why ask it
Contact lists go stale faster than anything else in the document. Give one person the job and a calendar reminder, and add an extra check after any departure, reorganization or product launch. 'Communications owns it' is too vague; the answer is a name.
How will new leaders and new hires learn what the plan asks of them?
Why ask it
A plan known only to the people who wrote it lasts until the first of them changes jobs. Put a short briefing into onboarding for anyone on the call list or standing in as a backup, and tell every new employee the one thing they need: where to report a problem and where to send a reporter. Then ask a recent hire what they would do today.
How will we know the crisis is over, and who says so?
Why ask it
With no agreed end, the team either stands down while people still have questions or stays on alert for weeks. Decide which signs count: inquiries falling away, the fix confirmed, the people affected looked after. One person should formally close it and tell staff what happens next.
What will we review afterward, and who takes part?
Why ask it
Hold the review before memories soften, and include the front-line people who first saw the problem, not only executives. Walk the timeline: when you knew, when you spoke, where approval stalled. The review is finished when the plan has been changed and the new version carries a date.
How to work through these questions as a team
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you start
Do it in a quiet month
These questions are for a week when nothing is on fire. The answers take time to collect, some of them need a lawyer, and several involve disagreements that are far easier to have when no reporter is waiting. If something has already gone wrong, go straight to Who decides and the first two questions under What we say, and come back to the rest afterward.
Decide who answers what
No single person can answer this page. Risks needs operations, IT, HR and customer support. Who decides is for the leadership team itself. The notification, apology and record-keeping questions go to your lawyer, the employee ones to HR, and the channel questions to whoever runs the website and social accounts. Mark each question with a name before the first meeting.
Bring a draft list of scenarios
A blank page produces vague answers. Arrive with five to ten scenarios written as one line each, such as 'customer data exposed by a vendor' or 'serious injury at the warehouse', and let the group add, cut and rank them. Every later question is easier to answer against a named scenario than against 'a crisis'.
Put the local questions to your advisers
What you must report, to whom and how fast, what you can ask of employees, how an apology or an internal record is treated later: all of that depends on the country, the state, the industry and your own contracts and insurance. This page cannot tell you, and neither can another company's plan. Ask your lawyer, HR adviser, insurer or broker how it works for you, and write their answer into the plan with the date you asked.
In the planning sessions
Take one group per meeting
The six groups run in the order the planning goes, and each fits a session of about an hour. Risks and Who decides come first because everything else depends on them. Trying to cover the whole list in one sitting usually ends with the first half answered well and the rehearsal questions skipped.
Answer with names, numbers and times
'Legal will review statements' is not an answer. 'Dana, or Luis if she is away, replies within 30 minutes on this number' is one, with your own people's names in it. For each question, keep going until the answer has a person, a way to reach them and a time attached.
Let legal and communications disagree now
Several questions under What we say are there to surface the tension between saying less and saying more. Let that argument happen in the planning session, on a template, with no deadline. What you want written down at the end is who decides when the two still disagree on the day.
Write the answers straight into the plan
Have one person type while the group talks, and turn each answer into a line of the plan before the meeting ends: a name on the call list, a step in the first hour, a template in the folder. Questions nobody could answer go on a short list with an owner and a date, and that list opens the next session.
Reading the answers
'We would figure it out' marks a gap
Confident general answers are the ones to press on. When someone says the team would sort it out on the day, ask who, on which phone, with whose approval. If the room cannot say, you have found something the plan needs, which is the point of asking.
Notice when one person is in every answer
If the same name comes up as decision maker, spokesperson, holder of the logins and keeper of the contact list, the plan fails the day that person is on a plane or is the subject of the story. Count how often each name appears and spread the load before you finish.
Test whatever can be tested
Some answers can be checked in ten minutes: whether the after-hours numbers ring, whether two people can log in to each account, whether the plan opens on a phone with no network. Check them. An answer that has been tried is worth more than one everybody merely agreed on.
Mistakes to avoid
Planning only for the dramatic crisis
The fire and the hack get the attention. The complaint that spreads online, the leader's remark and the slow safety issue get none, and they are just as able to fill a week. Make sure at least a few scenarios on your list are ordinary and embarrassing.
Leaving employees until last
Plans tend to start with the press statement. Staff who learn the news from outside lose trust in the company and have nothing to tell the customers who ask them. Look at where employees sit in your order of telling, and move them up if they come after the public.
Writing a plan too long to use
A sixty-page document will not be opened in the first hour. Keep the full plan, but put the call list, the triggers, the first-hour steps and the holding statements on two or three pages that fit on a phone.
Finishing the document and stopping
The questions under Rehearse and review are the ones most often left for later. People change jobs, numbers change and a team that has never practiced together will be slow. Put the first drill and the first contact check on the calendar before you call the plan done.