Can ignoring a crisis make it disappear?

When a crisis hits, your main goal is to minimize the damage to your organization. But rest assured, even if you don’t feel you’re at fault, your brand is sure to suffer.

However, your crisis response can either mend relationships and cut down on long-term damage, or burn bridges. That’s why having a crisis management plan is so important.

Of course, plan or not, when the day comes and you’re staring the unfortunate event in the face, you’ll have to choose how to respond, and human nature is going to tell you to run and hide. Not literally—although you may wish you could. Have you ever heard a reporter say, “The company could not be reached for a response”?

Better yet, an organization’s spokesperson is being interviewed and hit with some hard questions and he chooses the “no comment” route. Yeah, that’s virtually the same thing as running and hiding. For whatever reason, organizations do it all the time.

Guess how everyone watching or reading that is going to react: “Ugh.” That’s right, they’re going to roll their eyes and assume the worst. The result? Your brand is toast.