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Crisis Management Counsel

The Challenge

A regional construction company active in local politics and possessing an established reputation for corporate citizenship wanted to develop and implement company-wide procedures for crisis response and subsequent corporate reputation management.

The Approach

  1. ViaNovo conducted in-depth interviews with the company's senior leaders and media relations staff to understand its culture, organizational structure, existing procedures, capabilities, key audiences and potential vulnerabilities.
  2. Our team then developed a comprehensive crisis response plan targeting the media, local elected officials, customers and community allies. The plan included recommendations for new streamlined response procedures at the company and step-by-step guidelines for all company officials involved in the crisis response chain. ViaNovo also prepared all preliminary written materials for an initial crisis response.
  3. ViaNovo presented our recommendationsto the company's senior leaders and media relations staff and provided ongoing assistance in implementing the procedures into the company's daily work routine.
  4. Our team then conducted a series of six 2-1/2 hour media training sessions for the company's 25 field supervisors, members of the senior executive leadership and media outreach staff to prepare them for on-camera interviews in the event of a crisis. The first half of each session focused on strategies for conducting a successful interview and introduced key messages to be used for crisis response. The second half of the sessions provided on-camera training simulating both on-site/remote camera interviews and formal sit-down interviews.

The Outcome

By the end of our engagement, ViaNovo had helped our client implement new crisis response procedures and trained all potential spokespersons to effectively respond to related media inquiries. Our efforts enabled our client to respond successfully to events surrounding an incident on a job site that occurred soon after our crisis response recommendations were implemented.