Manage Public Relations Crises and Controversies

• P1. Define the PR crises criteria and risk associated with them.
• P2. Establish the 5 stages in managing crisis:
  • a. Detection,
  • b. Prevention/preparation,
  • c. Containment,
  • d. Recovery, and
  • e. Learning
• P3. Critique effective and poor real life crisis responses looking at:
  • a. Planning,
  • b. Proactivity,
  • c. Communications,
  • d. Actions taken,
  • e. Creating opportunity from crisis, etc.
• P4. Facilitate a Lessons Learned discussion revealing:
  • a. Response successes and failures,
  • b. What was learned about the total response,
  • c. Stakeholder feedback,
  • d. Unintended outcomes,
  • e. What should be done differently,
  • f. Recommendations for future responses.

• P1. Analysis tools that can be used in a crisis prevention process, including:
  • a. vulnerability audit
  • b. media (including social media) analysis,
  • c. legislative tracking,
  • d. industry reports,
  • e. polls, and surveys
  • f. Others.
• P2. Evaluate how companies in the food processing industry effectively identify and anticipate potential issues and prevent crises from developing.
• P3. Establish a lesson learning protocol to benefit from learning from previous company crisis.
• P4. Develop a food industry specific crisis prevention plan for the food processing case study company.

• P1. Outline the functioning, within a chain of command model, of a crisis response team consisting of:
  • a. CEO lead,
  • b. spokesperson,
  • c. experts in area of issue,
  • d. PR, HR, marketing and legal team members.
• P2. Establish the necessary components of a Crisis Communications Plan and why they are important including:
  • a. When to use the plan
  • b. The crisis communication team (including who the spokesperson will be)
  • c. Key messages (including accepting responsibility, apologizing)
  • d. Message channels (including influencers),
  • e. Internal and external communication procedure
  • f. Important contacts (internal and external)
  • g. Media list
• P3. Develop a food industry specific crisis communication plan for the food processing case study company.
• P4. Establish communication policies for all employees to follow and train them periodically on how to handle crisis.
• P5. Anticipate questions and create key message(s) which maintain clarity, conciseness and control and avoid emotional and reactionary responses.
• P6. Track social media activities that handle or deal with the PR crisis.

• P1. Explore components of a post-crisis management plan including:
  • a. Declaring an end to the crisis,
  • b. Follow up with stakeholders,
  • c. Lessons learned debrief,
  • d. Acts of good will,
  • e. Changes needed to crisis management plan.
• P2. Mitigate risks and challenges that happened from media tracking efforts.
• P3. Rebuild trust and begin planning to mitigate the next PR crisis.
• P4. Implement lessons learned to prevent PR crisis.

To successfully market any product there must be a positive connection to customers whether they are internal or external. Collecting and using customer satisfaction feedback is important for driving continuous improvement as is a robust customer complaint system.

• P1. Distinguish between internal and external customers.
• P2. Explain the importance of performance, on-time delivery, quick resolution of customer complaints, and level of service on customer retention and relationships.
• P3. Describe various methods for collecting customer satisfaction feedback, including:
  • a. formal surveys,
  • b. informal feedback,
  • c. focus groups and
  • d. other methods.
• P4. Document the importance of using customer satisfaction feedback to drive continuous improvement.
• P5. Define and identify a customer complaint. Understand and apply the complaint handling process including documentation, action taken, and providing resolution to the customer.
• P6. Provide training to the team explaining how to handle customer complaints.
• P7. Simulate potential crisis situations and evaluate the effectiveness of the Crisis management plan through a variety of activities, including:
  • a. Role-play the functioning of a crisis response team,
  • b. Creation of draft messaging based on crisis scenarios,
  • c. Choosing communication channels,
  • d. Creating media responses, press releases, interviews, etc.
  • e. Completing a lesson learned analysis,
  • f. Other.

• P1. Provide support and constructive feedback to the team.
• P2. Define the most prevalent interpersonal skills used in the sales function of the food industry.
• P3. Understand the importance of continued development of interpersonal skills for employee and company success.
• P4. Describe why teamwork is essential to a successful marketing effort and to identify and solve problems.
• P5. Describe when, where, why, and how teams can be used effectively.
• P6. Explain how a team’s efforts can support an organization’s key strategies and effect positive change throughout the organization.
• P7. Identify processes to recognize ongoing competency and awareness needs and ways to meet these needs including bulletins, memos, meetings, mentoring, behavior modeling, coaching, on-the-job training, formal training, personal feedback, and other methods.
• P8. Practice the emotional intelligence skills in increasing empathy, collaborative communication, stress reduction, prevention of employee turnover, better team engagement, improved company culture and improved individual and company performance.
• P9. Recognize how our emotional health and physical health are related and the need for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management in our work as managers.

• P1. Evaluate the effectiveness of the crisis management plan.
• P2. Describe and distinguish between the common definitions of quality.
• P3. Understand the difference and relationship between quality assurance, quality control, and continuous quality improvement.
• P4. Describe what quality means to various stakeholders (e.g., employees, organizations, customers, suppliers, community, and interested parties) and how each can benefit from quality.
• P5. Evaluate the crisis management process and update the relevant documents to implement continuous improvement strategy.
• P6. Design quality tools, techniques, and concepts that can improve processes and deliverables (including products and services) and explain how the tools can be used to identify problem root causes and improve problem solving.
• P7. Select, interpret, and apply the basic improvement tools:
  • a. Flowcharts,
  • b. Histograms,
  • c. Pareto charts,
  • d. Scatter diagrams,
  • e. Check sheets,
  • f. Control charts,
  • g. Decision trees,
  • h. Root Cause Analysis, and
  • i. other Quality tools.
• P8. Create a Sales Department Quality Report that could be delivered at a Management Review meeting.
• P9. Provide recommendations in Management meetings which help achieving a company’s mission, evaluating processes, and continuous improvement needs.