Responding to Crisis

Communication Guidelines for Shipping and Airline Industries in the Caribbean

Friday, August 14, 2009

Timing, Technique & Tone - The 3 keys of Crisis Communication

Timing
This examines the sequence of events documented in the local and print media that illustrates the period of time taken after the incident occurred before a response whether formal or informal was documented in the Jamaican or Caribbean media.

Technique
This refers to how the documented response to the public was given by the individuals or companies involved, whether by face to face, formal press release, via internet, televised or radio broadcast.

Tone
This refers to the emotive style utilized in the response messages. The tones coded were as follows:

Apologetic – acknowledging guilt, depicting apology, saying sorry

Explanatory – explaining what happened, how it happened, contextualizing the details

Defensive – deliberate effort to dissociate company or individual from any wrongdoing

Neutral – facts only depicting date, time, place, outcome without explaining how it happened or depicting any emotions

Persuasive – deliberate effort to convince public to agree with the company’s or individual’s stance taken

Compassionate – use of reassuring, comforting words

Authoritative – using authoritative jargon like statistics, expert advice, referring to authoritative data

Dismissive – trivializing event, or indicating that there is no crisis

No Comment - Either by actual silence or indicating “no comment”

Withholding – deliberately avoiding vital information

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