Report: 72% of communicators had a crisis plan before COVID—but was it enough?

Most organizations had some form of a crisis communications plan in place before the COVID-19 crisis upended the world economy. However, fewer teams put that plan into practice with regular risk assessment and crisis drills.

And very few had a specific plan for a pandemic.

In a recent Ragan survey—the 2021 Crisis and Healthcare Communications Forecast—respondents reported having done some preparation for a crisis, but less specific planning around specific risks, much less the unanticipated global health crisis that developed in 2020.

And even though organizations might have had a crisis plan in place, what was the sophistication level of that plan? Did the protocols rely on analytics and measurement, the latest listening tools and data, or were they run on instinct and tradition? While the majority (74%) found analytics very or somewhat important, about a quarter either ranked analytics as not very important or that there was no measurement effort at all. Regardless, the majority of communicators (88%) ranked their response highly effective or effective.