Crucial parts of holding statements in crisis PR
When responding to a crisis, you might have to offer updates or bulletins without knowing all the facts. Here’s how to craft these essential—yet terse—missives.
When disaster strikes, you have to respond quickly.
The time frame for responding is constantly changing—the latest thinking suggests organizations have just 15 minutes to respond.
One key to doing so is to prepare holding statements that can be quickly adapted to cover the current crisis.
An effective holding statement will buy an organization crucial time until it can better understand what has happened and issue something more detailed. It will also help prevent the spread of rumor and speculation.
Here are six crucial parts of an effective holding statement:
1. Empathy
It’s imperative that organizations show concern and sympathy for those who have been affected in a crisis incident, whether that is people who have been physically injured or customers unable to access their accounts because of a computer glitch.
Putting those people first and showing you understand the severity of what has happened will demonstrate compassion, concern and humanity.
2. Action
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Tags: Crisis Communications, PR
