Taking the drama out of a crisis

The PR disaster surrounding Eurostar this week has left people amazed the company did not appear to have a crisis plan in place.
Thousands of passengers were stranded for hours and hours on broken down trains in the Channel Tunnel after the operator seemed to be caught out by the cold snap.
Travellers were left angry that so little information was filtered down to them by staff about what had happened and when they would get to their destination.
Of course, the whole world soon found out what a huge mess it all was as people began to send text messages and Tweets complaining about their ordeal.
It reminded me of flights I have taken, coincidentally (or not) both with Ryanair. We were stranded in Rome for eight hours and on another occasion I was waiting for nine hours at Shannon Airport in Ireland.
In these two instances the only information given by the airline was the occasional change in the flight time on the departures board.
Not a single member of staff came out to explain why our flights were delayed - if they had then maybe most passengers would have understood and calmed down.
As strangers chatted about their plight the overwhelming theme was along the lines of 'I'm not flying with this lot ever again'.
That must have also been the overrding feeling for Eurostar passengers last week. 'They obviously don't care about us so I won't bother travelling with them again' would have been in most people's minds.
Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown admitted as much in an interview with the Financial Times when he said the company faced a big battle to rebuild public confidence in it.
It all goes to show that crisis management is an increasingly important role for public relations professionals.
The ability to deal firmly with a potentially damaging incident or development and take the drama out of a crisis.
Martin Langford's chapter in Exploring Public Relations, Crisis Public Relations Management, cites the key ingredients as knowledge, preparation, calmness, control and communication.
Eurostar has since converted accountants and administrators from its corporate offices into temporary customer service reps at its St Pancras terminus.
But the horses had already bolted, as the saying goes. The damage has been done but at least the company knows that if the incident is replicated again they must be prepared and, above all, communicate from the start.