Powers of Crisis Response Strategies †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Powers of Crisis Response Strategies. Answer: Introduction This report deals with the public relation error committed by the united airlines. A 60 years reputed doctor was so harshly disembarked from the flight just to accommodate their own employees, in the situation of overbooking. With the increasing status quo it has become very important to understand how nowadays public relation is one of the most important management function and how this situation would have been handled more patiently without insulting the valued customer of the company, and spoiling the brand image of the company by giving negative experience to the co-passengers. Public Relation department of the organization plays very important role in facilitating a relationship with the organization and public. As PR department by their sudden prudent decisions can save the image of the company in such state of affairs. A prudent PR team can be a saviour for the organization at the time such drastic mishappenings (Sheeehan Johnston 2014). On Sunday 9 April 2011 an unfortunate passenger Dr. Dao was dragged very harshly by the officers of united airlines, when he dejected to disembark the flight 3411. The incident started when the flight crew officers asked passengers to voluntarily deplane in order to accommodate the crew members to Louisville to meet another flight, when the required number of seats did not get vacant, they asked Dr. Dao to deplane but he refused. As Dr.Dao was medical practioner and had to reach Louisville for his patients appointment, but when he refused he was harshly dragged out from the flight. (Reuters, 2017) Reputed customer of the united airlines was treated unmannerly to meet out companys own mission this situation created very negative image of the company. After this inhuman behavior of the company, president of United Airlines in his first interview was not at all in apology tone, which resulted a huge disgrace in the public that lead to decreased rating and falling down of companys stock prices, which forced president Munoz to reappear in the press and give formal apology to public. As per the recent news of 28 September 2017, united airlines and Dr. Dao had amicable agreement, company paid huge amount to Dr.Dao to close the case (United airlines reaches settlement, 2017) Importance of Public Relation in the organization Gruing Hunt (1984) defined a public relation is the two way communication system between organization and customer. In todays competitive world companys reputation is of the highest importance and the responsibility to take care of this is on the head of PR department, Proactive public relations practitioners will be ready to take advantage of opportunities when they arise and to prevent potential problems from flaring up. (Allen, Patrick, Stacey, Frank, 2008) as the crisis can happen anytime and a prudent PR team should know how to handle the situation and to keep the reputation of the company high. Coombs (2007) notes that crisis threatens to damage the reputations because a crisis gives people a reason to think badly of the organization if a reputation shifts from favorable to unfavorable stakeholders can change how they interact with the organization .At the time of crisis the main responsibility of PR officials to take care of five most important things a,) company in crisis should always take fact action in order to address the public for immediate information of the crisis. b) The company should be very truthful in giving information to the stakeholders as it can help from spoiling the image. C) The company should always try to give every information at each step as delay in information can lead to rumors in the market which can truly destroy the image. d) it is very important to show concern for the victim of crisis and show that company in apologetic mode and it truly cares for them, as this will help the organization to get the forgiveness from the public or stakeholder s. e) Finally, the company should always follow the most ethical two-way symmetrical theory given by Gruings Hunts which guides to manage a systematic two-way symmetrical communication as it does not lead to monologue it supports dialogue between company and stakeholders. The systematic way of resolving any crisis is a three-step approach which includes (Gruing Hunt, 1984) Crisis Management In todays competitive era and ever-changing time, it is very important to have strong crisis management system in the organization in order to help the organization in losing the brand image or reputations through some mishappenings in the organization. Crises are rare events that disturb the normal operations of an organization, with knocks on the implications for its assets, its future relationships with a companys stakeholders which threaten the very survival of the organization (Carroll, 2009 Feng , 2010). As crisis can threaten the image of the company and can lead stakeholders to lose the trust in the company, Coombs (2010). Company need to follow a specific communication strategy as per the situation demands in order to hold strong trust in the mind of the consumer Feng, (2010). As per Coombs (2009) pre-crisis should embrace concerns for prevention and preparation. The crisis stage is concerned with response: Process and content. The post-crisis phase gives various voices and managements the opportunity for follow-up communication, perhaps, for instance, offering the lessons learned from the crisis that can reduce the likelihood of recurrence, mitigate it if does, prevent recurrence, and prepare stakeholders for that event. Coombs (2009). Under this strategy organization attempts to remove connection between organization and crisis, claiming that no such crisis happened, without taking charge of it. Organization act very indifferent to problem at hand Evasion of responsibility The organization tries to attempts to mitigate the responsibility from the crisis, and protect themselves by saying that they are innocent and are not responsible for the crisis happened, and the organization convey message that their intentions were good, and it was out of their hand to prevent the crisis. The organization tries to give good impression about themselves to the public as after crisis their image can be perceived negatively. So they try to give positive thought to the audience in order to reduce their offensiveness. For example company through advertising highlight their good deeds give a thought to the people that company do think about their customers in order to negate the effect of mishappenings in the organization. Corrective strategy is a kind of responsible step by any organization, as under this strategy organization put their effort to solve the problem occurred and make sure that it doesnt happen again in future. This strategy aims to rectify the mistakes committed by the company, this aims to gives the positive image of the organization to its stakeholders or the esteemed customers. Under this strategy organization take full charge of crisis occurred by their side and ask for apology to the people, this strategy is of the high level of acceptance as per many researchers as public always forgive if organization take charge. Customers always favors company who are ready to charge of whatever they do, and who have a sense of apology after any crisis. Phases of Crisis management Phases of crisis management is the process of handling the crisis at different point of time when any mishappenings come at the end of the organization. At all the stages there altogether different ways to handle crisis at the hand namely Pre crisis , during crisis and post crisis in all the phases should try that their ball did not surrender itself and let the competitor leverage out the situation and prevent competitor to build image or trust on the failure song of the company under crisis situation. Pre-crisis is based on the concept of prevention is better than cure that is to remain ready for any type of situations.it is always better to keep yourself prepare rather than to panic in the crisis situation. Company which is always prepare for each type of emergency situations tend to have a consistently good image in the market as company officers are trained in such companies to handle any situation without hurting anyone and without effecting the brand image of the company. (Coombs, 2006) There are so many tasks that involves at the time of crisis i.e. taking care of companys reputation and brand image, this phase is the most critical situation as at the time of crisis globes eye is on the company under crisis at their one wrong step can let them suffer from huge loss, because it is very to lose the trust but it takes years build in short company employees should handle situation in very calm and quick way without hampering any ones interest PR department always tries to make Win-Win situation for the organization and the stakeholders. Post-crisis phase basically deals in reputation building phase, PR department should try to bring in notice the recovery phase and company should promise the stakeholders to deliver value they are worth from the organization. Company should always try to give some good thought to change the negative perception created. PR errors done by the United Airlines United airlines created their own crisis and handled it miserably, company has handled the situation very badly as company acted in very inhuman way and it insulted the reputed customer of the airlines Errors in Pre-Crisis Phase: Company was not ready to handle any situation of overbooking, and even company was not having any preplanning to send their employees to meet any other flight at other destination. Company should have pre-planning for such obvious situation, as per situation mentioned in the case if the company would have pre planning to handle these situation crisis occurred in company could not have occurred. Errors during Crisis phase: During crisis, company behaved in a very inhuman way, company did not care for both stakeholder and companys reputation. Behavior of company officers towards a passenger was very heartening as dragging any customer forcibly with blood on the face proves that the company officers lacks the human values, as just to serve the companys problem in hand, insulting any other person and hurting him is actually very bad. Errors in Post-Crisis phase: Company did not even follow the rebuild strategy, President of the company Mr. Munoz did not even apologize, to the victim passenger and to other stakeholders, his actions proved that customers or stakeholders hardly matter to the company. This pushed the matter in social media very heavily and people protested for the company, after huge protest DR.Munoz reappear on the global TV news channel with apology. This was actually an immature way to handle such disastrous situation. Recently Oscar Munoz President of united airlines had amicable settlement with Dr.Dao Company paid an unknown amount in order to settle down this matter although company created a win win situation but it definitely lost PR war. Conclusion United Airlines whose main objective is To make every flight a positive experience for the customer themselves created negative experience for esteem customer Dr. Dao and his co passengers as company (under study) handled the situation untactfully and itself destroyed its brand image. This proved that united airlines do not have a sound PR department who can take the charge of the situation and can handle the situation in a tactful manner. In todays competitive world when customer is king and the main objective of any organization is to keep customer happy, creating such situation is really very heartening because a company dont have any right to mis-treat any customer all the organization should be ready to handle any situation which can create the image dilution situation. Recommendation Every companies who works for the betterment of the customer, need to have robust and Proactive PR department who are ready to handle any mishappenings. PR department should give proper training to the employees of the company who are actually the face of the company whose acts are directly responsible for the image of the company. Employees should be given proper training to handle the situation in the all the phases of crisis management. pre-crisis phase, if situation is out of hand company cannot prevent the crisis, then PR department should be ready to manage situation, and dont let ball out of their court and give chance to customer and media too think or let them compel to think bad for them and should try to manage the situation during crisis. If still situations get worst and crisis get happen with the organization, PR team should prudently and strategically handle the post crisis situation to gain some emotional favor and apology from the stake holders. Organization should never try to hurt the stakeholders who have deep trust in them as it takes year to build trust and strong image in the mind of customer, but it takes seconds to get it destroyed and once it is destroyed by some misdeed it is very difficult to rebuild that trust and brand image again, as competitors are always ready to leverage such opportunity. Thus to save company from all of this there should be a strong Savior PR department who can guide all the employees, train them to handle situations at hand very efficiently. Just few things if the company take care beforehand, can save company from huge loss, as prudent planning, quick response by PR department is the key to handle any difficult situation in the organization. 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