Article 02: Crisis Management and Public Relations
What is Crisis Management?
Crisis management refers to a company’s process in identifying and responding to any threat, disruption, or incident that can negatively effect the organization in any way. A Crisis management team’s efficacy is dependent upon their prompt and efficient response to critical events in a timely manner.
Their are 3 stages of crisis management which includes:
Pre-Crisis
Crisis Response
Post-Crisis
The pre-crisis stage refers to the stage that includes attempting to avoid potential risks preemptively by establishing a plans to monitor any situations that can result in potential risks. Following this, the crisis response stage refers to the crisis management team taking action and communicating with both the employees and the public. Last, the post-crisis stage includes reviewing the crisis response, and evaluating the public’s perception on your organization and determining if the crisis response was effective or not. This stage also includes determining better ways to prepare for any future potential crises.
Toyota Acceleration Crisis
In 2009-2010, Toyota received an immense amount of backlash regarding a design flaw that caused unintended acceleration of their vehicles. In response to the backlash received, Toyota recalled nearly 8 million cars due to major crashes resulting in multiple deaths. The major design flaw was the floor mat that was installed was creating the pedal to ‘stick’ resulting in the unintended acceleration of millions of their vehicles. Toyota responded by recalling these vehicles and issuing apologies to this effected from the unintended acceleration crisis.
During this specific crisis, Toyota’s reputation took a severe hit, many boycotts began to surface, the amount of backlash they were receiving increased, etc. Although Toyota, changed leadership, provided customer support, communicated well, and prompted a recall of millions of these vehicles, they still received mix results from the public due to the delayed communication from the crisis management team, the lawsuits they were facing, and due to their lack of urgency.
Although they have faced such backlash, over time Toyota took the proper measures needed to rebuilt trust with their customers and to reshape the public’s perspective of this company. This specific example helps emphasize the importance of having a proper crisis management plan and team.
