Crisis Planning Success Story

Creating a Crisis Plan & Handbook

Here’s an example of how we responded to a request to produce a Crisis Communications Plan and Handbook for a global aviation client.

They have 1,200 employees and work with over 2,500 airports in more than 175 countries, from the busiest and largest including Atlanta, Beijing, Dubai, Heathrow, Charles De Gaulle, Frankfurt, Istanbul, New Delhi and Changi, to the fast-growing airports across Asia and Africa.

Aims

Their aim was to develop a robust Crisis Plan for their business, which would provide them with a global strategy and approach, and which would still be relevant to the local or regional situation.

This Plan also needed to reassure their own clients that this business could professionally deal with a crisis or potential crisis situation, and thereby protect the reputation of not only their own business, but their clients as well.

Response

Our response had two key elements.

The first element was to produce a comprehensive Handbook, explaining exactly how the business will respond to a crisis.

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Through our existing relationship and understanding of this client’s business, we surveyed and spoke directly with all the key people in the business. That formed the foundation for us to host and facilitate a workshop, bringing together representatives from all elements of the business, to make sure every angle was covered. 

This process allowed us to fully recognise the current situation at the time, the potential for a crisis to occur both internally and externally, and what a future Crisis Plan needed to do.

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Putting together newly developed bespoke scenarios, we created practical real-life approaches and procedures, to manage the flow of information across the business, to the media, and to stakeholders.

The second element was the design and coaching of a Crisis Media Skills programme.

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Incorporating the scenarios from the Handbook, we trained up several of the senior leadership team, to deal with the media demand and interviews across broadcast platforms, whilst following the procedures laid down in the Crisis Plan Handbook.

Outcome

The outcome is a Crisis Planning Handbook, produced by us and now managed by the Marketing Team within the business.

A valuable and unforeseen benefit to undertaking the development and creation of the Handbook, has been the realisation of other potential risks in their business processes and procedures, which they might have otherwise not considered.

The crisis plan is regularly updated as personnel and circumstances change.

The business, with our guidance, has recently sourced new spokespeople to boost the established team. They are all confident and skilled to represent their business in a crisis…but the overall outcome has been to establish their peace of mind.

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The crisis media planning sessions were invaluable, and have definitely made us feel more prepared and reassured. This has given our team the skills and confidence to manage any possible interviews.

We really value your expertise, advice and feedback.

Leading Charity Client

The Babaco Media team delivered insights and knowledge on crisis planning that we hadn’t thought through previously.

Brilliant facilitation and coaching skills, providing constructive feedback throughout, and we really liked the written reports they produced afterwards; an excellent learning tool in itself. 

Our team, who are based all over the world, learnt valuable lessons in crisis media too.

Telecommunications Client

The crisis media scenario was great to practice in a safe environment, and gave us the opportunity to work as a team on our key messages.

A really good day – a great training double act – well done and many thanks.

Aviation Client

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