Strategy Against Coombs Theory - Example

4.2 Strategy against Coomb’s theory Any company faced with a crisis requires a crisis management plan (CMP), which is a tool used to kick start the management process. The CMP includes all key contact information, components of all actions that need to be taken as well as forms for the documentation of the crisis response. This plan acts as a reference source and it saves time through ensuring that tasks of the management process are pre-assigned while vital information is pre-collected. For effective crisis management, the crisis team in the organization should know their specific tasks and responsibilities (Barton 2001). Coomb’s situational theory has three main elements which include the crisis situation, response strategies and a system that matches the crisis situation with the response strategies (Wright 2009). During a crisis, a company has to deal with various challenges that include protecting and rebuilding its reputation (Coombs, 2004). There are clear guidelines that should be used in crisis management, which include being quick, accurate and consistent. After all, organizational behavior plays a key role in determining its reputation in the eyes of the stakeholders and thus, a company’s words and actions must match even during a crisis situation (Herbig, Milewicz, & Golden 1994). Taco Bell was quick to respond to its crisis, but it broke vital rules in crisis management because according to Coombs (2006), the SCCT stipulates that to protect a reputation, the acceptance of responsibility by the organization in response to the crisis ought to be consistent with stakeholders’ acknowledgment of responsibility as generated by the crisis. In Taco Bell’s case, the company disregarded the views of stakeholders and especially its customers who needed reassurance that indeed its meat fillings are entirely beef. Instead, the company decided to publicize the allegations made against it using full page newspaper ads that read, “Thanks for suing us”. The second rule that Taco Bell broke in the protocol of crisis management was that a company faced by a crisis should promote the opposite of what it is accused of without mentioning the allegations. Thirdly, the company should provide incredible third party proof to support their stand put forth in the second rule. Taco Bell seems to have ignored looming reputation threats that it faced, following the lawsuit filed in relation to the beef issue. Reputation is very important to any company, and it represents the collective evaluation by stakeholders in relation to how well the company meets their expectations (Wartrick 1992). Although the company came forward quickly, the message it communicated implied that it did not care much about meeting the expectations of shareholders to know the truth, as much as it cared about throwing counter remarks towards the law firm that filed the suit. Further, Taco Bell seemed to put forth an arrogant attitude following the lawsuit, since its messages left no room for error. The CEO said boldly that its tacos contain 88% beef and 12% spices and other ingredients (Public Relations Rogue, 2011). Thus, were it to be found that these was wrong, the company would have found itself in a pit too deep to come out of anytime in the near future. Despite the obvious slips in crisis management approach, Taco Bell did a number of things right. First, they were quick to make a response, which ensured that customers heard their side of the story. Second, the company’s CEO made himself visible to represent the public face of the company. They also used different platforms of media to express their side of the story including newspapers, social media, and You Tube, which ensured that they reached as many stakeholders as possible. Lastly, they were consistent with the message they put forth throughout the crisis management (Public Relations Rogue 2011). Unfortunately, this was not the first crisis to have faced Taco Bell in regard to the conditions of its products, which made their crisis management approach in this case flawed. It was a huge gamble to come forward in such an aggressive manner, because it put the company’s reputation at stake. Taco Bell had to publish its ingredients after it felt pressured to do so. Thankfully in this case, most Taco Bell loyal customers did not seem to mind that their tacos do not contain 100% beef. 4.3 Spokesperson Role Talking to the news media is one component of crisis management, because the media becomes saturated with news of a crisis just like the one faced by Taco Bell in this case. Often, the media take a story out of proportion, which stands the chance of misleading stakeholders and thus, as part of quick response, a spokesperson ensures that the information put forward to the media and stakeholders is accurate, understandable and solely the position of the company. During crisis management, crisis communication is very important and this is where the spokesperson comes in. Crisis communication management is a division of public relations and thus public relations strategies must be applied to communicate information to stakeholders and the media during a crisis (Combs 2007). This means that not just anyone can be used to disseminate information during a crisis, and a spokesperson must be part of the crisis team, and be trained in media and even public relations. Taco Bell used their CEO as the spokesperson of the company in the crisis management, airing various taped interviews with major media networks, as well as a video that suggested the company would take stern warning against the ‘bogus’ lawsuit (Public Relations Rogue 2011). Many companies like Taco Bell feel that the CEO is the best suited person to address a crisis, since they are often the most articulate person (Jordan-Meier 2012). However, it is good to be careful not to push the CEO to the front line because the initial response that a company puts forward does not only set the tone for the crisis; it also determines the course of the crisis. Having the CEO say things that raise questions in regard to the crisis easily becomes part of the crisis itself (Weick 1998). Involvement of the CEO as the main spokesperson of the crisis sends the message that the situation is serious enough to warrant his personal involvement in dissemination of the information. Although the CEO must never be entirely absent, the decision to let him take ownership of the crisis and be the sole communicator also causes the stakes of the company’s reputation to rise significantly (Jordan-Meier 2012). There is obvious pressure on the spokesperson during a crisis, but signs of this pressure must never permeate to the media cameras. The spokesperson is the face that the public will associate with the company as well as the particular crisis for a long time. Taco Bell CEO became the face that people learnt to associate his company with during the crisis, and his confidence in the information the company disseminated determined whether they would safeguard their reputation. A spokesperson must be trained to always be calm and never appear nervous, as well as to express empathy for any people affected by the situation. This helps to put forward the image of a company that cares about the people and not just the profits (Hemus 2009). The spokesperson must also never express consent with words such as “no comment” because they are interpreted to mean guilt on the part of the company. Instead, they must focus on giving facts such as the company’s efforts in working to manage the crisis. Any information should be easy to understand without the use of technical terms and acronyms that the public might not understand, while speculation must be avoided at all costs. In addition, the company’s spokesperson must show complete presence in the delivery of the information using their tone of voice and body language, by avoiding any form of agitation, tension and panic (Hemus 2009). Although he did not directly face media cameras, Taco Bell CEO appeared confident in what he was saying, and regardless of whether the message was harsh towards those who filed the lawsuit, he made the impression of a leader who was confident in the message he was communicating to the public. Reiteration is especially a strategy that a trained spokes person is aware of, because he/she realizes the importance of emphasizing on the company’s key message to the public, and thus avoid being led by the interviewer in the case of a media interview regarding the crisis at hand just like Taco bell’s CEO (Hemus 2009). 5. Taco Bell’s Crisis Outcome Although most of Taco Bell’s customers seemed to remain loyal to the company, it still lost customers which translated into loss of profits in 2011. In the second quarter of 2011, the company’s sales had dropped by 5%, and the Franchise Board was displeased with these results (Morrison 2011). The President of Taco Bell Franchise Management Advisory Council (Franmac), Tom Cook, rallied franchisees to hold a Taco Bell Hall call putting forth complaints including the handling of the beef lawsuit. Taco Bell’s parent company Yum Brands also expressed similar displeasure in the sharp decline in sales, since together with commodity inflation, Taco Bell recorded 28% decline in the second quarter (Baertlein 2011). Taco Bell must have underestimated the effect of failing to handle the lawsuit using the right crisis management channels. The CEO of Yum Brands, David Novak, reported in a conference call with analysts that the negative effects of the lawsuit lasted longer than they expected, which means that Taco Bell did not take the probable effects of the lawsuit as seriously as it was (Baertlin 2011). The outcome of the crisis also pushed Taco Bell to invest more into designing new products, s well as engage in more compelling advertising to bring the sales back up. Even amidst announcing these plans, Novak did not fail to put the blame squarely on the public relations loopholes on the part of Taco Bell in dealing with the beef crisis. He said that Taco Bell failed to apply PR efforts in dealing with the lawsuit, which seemed to be an attack on the aggressive national ads on print and web campaigns denouncing the legitimacy of the lawsuit (Morrison 2011). Novak also pointed out that customers who abandoned Taco Bell after the lawsuit were particularly very hard to win back, which reflects on the loss of the company’s reputation that has in turn led to loss of profits. In dealing with the beef lawsuit, Taco Bell’s harsh response shows that the company forgot a basis principle of public relations which, according to Ledingham (2006 465), is the need to balance the interests of the company and those of the public through management of the organization-public relationships. The shift in profits for Taco Bell following the crisis suggest that indeed, the company and its stakeholders have a connection, which makes it important to talk openly about the relationships between them (Coombs 2000a 73). Public relations are fundamentally involves the nurturing and maintenance of the company-public relationships through proper communication. Through failing to address the public and instead choosing to send a harsh message to those who filed the lawsuit, Taco Bell disregarded the need to nurture their relationship with the public. This in turn led to the loss of trust with customers who left never to return. 6. Conclusion Crises in organizations have become frequent and often disastrous to the profits of an organization and even its very existence in certain cases. One of the biggest threats of any crisis in the organization is its reputation, and while some crises can be detected early and measures taken to prevent them, others are entirely undetectable. Taco Bell’s beef lawsuit may not have been entirely undetectable, because the company had faced similar crises before in regard to the quality of their products. In this regard, the company should have been prepared with a crisis team in place to take the necessary crisis management steps. Coomb’s theory on SCCT suggests that some crisis responses produce better outcomes than others, depending on the situation at hand. This resounds with Taco bell’s case, which failed in preventing loss of reputation among some its customers, the result of which was loss of profits in 2011. Crisis management is a fundamental function of any organization, and failure in appropriate management leads to harm caused on stakeholders and losses for the organization as in the case of Taco Bell. Public relations are obviously a key part of crisis management, conducted through proper practices to prevent escalation of the crisis at hand, as well as safeguard the organization’s reputation after the crisis. It was paramount that Taco Bell was not viewed in a negative light, because its probability for surviving the crisis would have been insignificant. In this regard, the company acted quickly by offering its side of the story and disregarding the claims that its tacos did not use real beef fillings. This quick action, together with factual information given in a consistent manner worked in favor of Taco Bell. Although the company may have defied the rules of crisis management, these positive actions saved the company because the outcome could have been worse. Besides, Taco bell must use this crisis as an example on how important crisis management and communication are, in helping to mitigate and manage future crises in the company. 7. Reference List Baertlein, L. 2011 Taco Bell still hurting from beef quality lawsuit. Reuters. Available from: . [6 December 2012]. Barton, L. 2001. Crisis in organizations II, 2nd edn, College Divisions South-Western, Cincinnati. Coombs, W. T. 2000. Crisis management: Advantages of a relational perspective. In Ledingham, J. A. & Bruning, S. D. (eds.). Public Relations as Relationship Management. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah. Coombs, W. T. 2004. A theoretical frame for post-crisis communication: Situational crisis communication theory. In Martinko, M. J. (Ed.), Attribution theory in the organizational :Theoretical and empirical contributions (pp. 275-296). Information Age Publishing, Greenwich. Coombs, W. T. 2006. Crisis management: A communicative approach. In Botan, C. H. & Hazleton, V. (Eds.). Public Relations Theory II, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah. Coombs, W. T. 2007. The development of the situation crisis communication theory. Pearson, New York. Herbig, P., Milewicz, J., & Golden, J. (1994). ‘A model of reputation building and Destruction’, Journal of Business Research, vol.31, pp. 23-31. Hemus, J. 2009. Golden rules for the crisis spokesperson. Available from: . [6 December 2012]. Jordan-Meier, J. 2012. To CEO or not? Who makes the best spokesperson in a crisis? Employers and Crisis Management. Available from: . [6 December 2012]. Ledingham, John A. 2006. Relationship management: A general theory of public relations. In Botan, C. H. & Hazleton, V. (Eds.). Public Relations Theory II, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah. Morrison, M. 2011 Taco Bell Franchise council wants agency review. Ad Age. Available from: . [6 December 2012]. Public Relations Rogue 2011. Taco Bell using aggressive crisis response. Available from: .[6 December 2012]. Weick, K. E.1988. ‘Enacting sense-making in crisis situations’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 25 no.4, pp. 305-317. Wright, C 2009. Responding to crises: A test of the situational crisis communication theory. Available from: .[6 December 2012]. Read More