Reputation management: How to prepare for, respond to and recover from a crisis

Reputations take years to build and can be destroyed in a single moment. That is true for individuals and organisations. Building customer trust in your brand takes time but a single mistake can wipe that out overnight.

A recent example, which I blogged about previously, is that of Starbucks Korea. You can read more about it here but, in summary, the coffee purveyor’s reputation in their third largest market globally plummeted overnight after an AI-generated marketing campaign caused an outcry.

Other prominent examples include the ignominious fall of BrewDog, initially with a workplace “culture of fear” backlash from employees in 2021, and later a lack of return to “equity for punk” investors when the company sold its UK and Irish operations in 2026.

The list is endless: redundancies, chicken shortages, IT meltdowns, financial scandals and workplace controversies have all tarnished once-respected businesses. While some may recover in time, others fall by the wayside, or stumble on carrying the baggage of a badly handled crisis.

How not to handle a crisis response

Crises happen, of course. Believing it will never happen to you or your organisation is only likely to lead to complacency and complacency is often the seed from which these situations to arise. Sometimes they are avoidable, sometimes they are not.

Where issues often develop, however, is when organisations or individuals bury their heads in the sand, dismiss criticism, ignore journalists’ and the wider public’s questions, or get overly defensive. Complete contrition may not always be advisable but if an issue has grown into a crisis (e.g. customers are complaining, journalist enquiries are coming in, etc), then something has clearly gone wrong and it’s time to own it.

Planning for a crisis

There are many ways to plan for crises, whether expected or not, but it is often how we handle them in the moment that will dictate the severity of long-term reputational damage. A crisis communications plan, for example, is great for ensuring everyone knows their roles, what they should and shouldn’t do, who is leading the response, who to call, etc.

Running scenarios is another great way to plan ahead, and I have been involved in these within the NHS, for example. In those situations, it was more about responding to an external crisis, such as how the organisation manages a mass casualty event. A significant part of that response is communications, as it’s vitally important to keep staff, patients, and the wider public updated.

Running scenarios, especially for larger organisations, can be a highly effective way to ensure a crisis is responded to quickly and efficiently, as well as ensuring everyone is generally aware of what happens and the likely outcomes. They should involve the executive team, management, and anyone else within the organisations who will have an important role in a crisis outbreak, such as the comms team.

When a crisis arises

When a real crisis does arise, everyone should know how to respond. A journalist may not immediately call the comms team, for example, choosing instead to doorstep a business premises or call a manager directly. The team should know what to do in that instance, who to call, how to take information, and how to pass it on to the comms team.

The comms team should know:

• what to do if a reporter, photographer, or news crew is knocking on the door

• how to write an effective response, whether an intermediate response while further internal enquiries take place, or a full response to the issue at hand

• who to run that response past to get a quick sign off

• who to call if further questions come in from journalists

• whether a spokesperson needs to be briefed and who that person is

• how to track the story and where to share media clippings (e.g. among the executive team)

• how to respond on social media channels, including to comments.

All of this and more should be covered in a crisis communications plan and it should be drilled using simulated crises so the team can respond quickly, efficiently, calmly and effectively.

Recovering from a reputation damaging crisis

When a crisis occurs, it’s likely your reputation will take a hit. An effective response can help mitigate the damage but it rarely prevents it. PRs do not have the ability to magically bury a story. But we can help manage the fallout, the response, and the rebuild. Sometimes crises can rise and fall quickly while on other occasions it can take time and diligence.

If an organisation chooses to ignore a crisis, however, it will hang over them and cause lasting issues. It is vital to handle crisis situations at the outset and that is where a professional PR consultant can help.

Whether producing a crisis communications strategy, training your internal team, running crisis communications scenarios, or handling a crisis situation on your behalf, we at Schofield Communications offer decades of experience and expertise working across all sectors and industries – from public bodies to blue chip international businesses.

Facing a situation today? Looking at a potential reputational issue in future? Or simply want to plan ahead? Get in touch to learn more about how we can help ensure you are prepared for your next crisis.