Business Crisis Communication - Essay Example

Business Crisis Communication Institution Affiliation Date DAVE’S DINNER FOOD POISONING SCANDAL: A MAJOR BUSINESS INCIDENT Introduction Dave’s dinner is a famous family-owned chained of restaurants that are based in the western United States. It has branches in St. Louis, Memphis City and Oklahoma City. The restaurants are known for the best foods and service delivery in the region and have a big customer base. It does both inside and outside catering and offers a variety of both local and international meals and delicacies. In 2014, two private parties were hosted in the hotel, and there were a lot of people in attendance. (Benoit, 1997) The people enjoyed themselves for the better part of the party and enjoyed the meals that had been prepared. The Scandal Explained After a while, there were reports of ill customers which reached the restaurant employees and management. The local emergency rooms and hospitals started receiving many ill patients mostly with stomach related problems. The patients were of all age’s children, men, and women who had the same symptoms and complications. Most of them were from the section of the society that was to the states that were in a considerable proximity from the restaurant. The rumors spread quickly, and a local radio station sent an undercover reporter to investigate the happening in the hospitals and emergency rooms where the victims were admitted. The reporter interviewed some of the patients and their family members and relatives who were at the party and streamed the live broadcast to the people. All the patients were reported to be suffering from food poisoning, and soon more than 15 patients were reported to be in critical condition with four of them being on life support. Most of the victims were suffering symptoms ranging from explosive diarrhea to stomach upsets. The information spread quickly and widely within the people, and there was public outrage as the people pushed to have clarification on the issue and the people behind the food poisoning to be apprehended. Dave’s Diner was therefore required to make certain notifications immediately, which involved the government agencies and the police and homeland security department. With very little information to go on, the owners of Dave’s Diner organization and management was immediately facing severe public questions that required some quick affirmative action to calm down the people and assure them that the matter was being handled. They were required to take actions on the issue and make decisions with minimal information as it was still shocking confusing and management was still following up on the issue, at the same time negative visibility and publicity was growing faster minute by minute. For a family company which had been passed on from generation to generation and taken up a long time to build its reputation and cement its name as one of the best restaurants in the region, this was a very stressful and unprecedented situation. Although it appeared that only one of the branches of the restaurants was involved, local media worked tirelessly on the issue and seemed to uncover individuals who had the same health problems but had eaten at the other restaurant stores in the chain in the past few days. Pressure mounted after this new information and immediately families and relatives of the victims began calling the restaurant management demanding that they are communicated to and the expenses incurred in making the trips to the hospital, and the treatment is catered for by the management as it was their negligence that led to the situation. Questions came in fast and in handy. What is the condition of the patients? Was poisoning deliberate? How comes the victims were from all the chain stores?. Some asked what the management and the local authorities were doing about the issue and who will assume the financial burden of the victims. Dave’s restaurant management was completely unprepared to handle such a situation and the company’s reputation, and operations were on the brink as the authorities were anticipating canceling the company’s licenses for all the chain stores until the case was solved. The reality of communication of information relating to a crisis nowadays is complex and technological. Consumers and the public convey information about organizations quickly at high speed than how public relations and managers can verify and control the validity of such information. Organizations should respond as soon as for how the information is passed through social media. Nevertheless,t this is true and would provide quick solutions and prevent damage to the reputation of the organization but may also be appropriate for provision of adequate responses and avoiding legal issues and complications that may arise. The way in which companies communicate with stakeholders during a crisis event is rapidly changing with the all-time access provided by the Internet through platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Information about business incidents reaches many people quickly and easily, and this gives public relations people, management and communication executives a hard time as they struggle to provide information and counter arguments to the allegations that arise. (Bell, 2010) The Companies Response The management of the company Communicated internally first by reaching out to all employees and seeking information on what happened. Within the first 24 hours, the person in charge of Communications surveyed the situation and determined that the situation was from the restaurant. He then began to communicate externally with the relevant audiences at that time such as the authorities and senior management. His communication represented all the employees and reflected the position of the organization in respect to the matter. Information regarding such crisis becomes public instantly, and this is why the company communicated quickly and first with the employees as failure to react and communicate promptly may lead to employees making uninformed communication which may differ from the one management may communicate. During a crisis, the employees are usually under pressure, and when cornered they may give information that may vary from the one management has given or plans to give. Mismatch of information will lead to a lack of trust by the people and the authorities on what exactly happened to result in the bad reputation of the company, legal actions, and even full fall of the company where it is prevented from carrying out its activities in the future. Therefore there should be group communication among employees and management during such occurrences as quickly as possible. The following day the company was responding to customer’s questions about the issue on social media platforms like tweeter answering on whether the company was aware of the situation, what it was doing about it and why it had not issued a formal statement yet. The fastest mediumSocial media is the fastest medium through which information is passed and allows people to engage by sharing their views. If there is no response to the issue through social media to try and explain to the people and communicate logically on how the issue is being handled, the people may develop a bad perception of the organization. All the calls from victims were directed to the headquarters where the managers were. An Analysis Of The Manner In Which The Company Handled The Situation The management is acting to the situation timely making use of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Thus, this explains and evaluates how organizations select a crisis response strategy, to ensure that the organizations resumes it operations and regains its reputation and customer base.( Coombs, 2004) A crisis triggers attributions of responsibility to the organization from stakeholders in various ways. First they have to consider whether the incident that has happened will likely happen again. Second, they evaluate whether the event could have been controlled and prevented by an individual or the organization, and thirdly whether it occurred within the organization or outside. In this case, Dave’s dinner was not directly responsible for what happened. The happened inside the organization but within the employees, and this type of crisis had never happened before. The company then made a formal apology to the victims and told the truth about what happened. The apology was clear to the point and sympathized with the people and promised to prevent any future re-occurrence of such an incident. The apology consisted of a verbal statement regarding the incident and a written one too. The communications executive manager issued the statement expressing the regrets of the whole organization. Both apologies reiterated how ashamed and regretful the organization was and explained the reasons for the occurrence. It also withdrew the financial burden of the victims and offered to clear the hospital and transportation expenses incurred by the victims or their families. In the apology, statement time was accorded for questions and clarity where the people were allowed to seek clarity on the matter. The organization then gave an opportunity for customers to engage management and offer their views and ideas on how such incidences can be avoided in the future. The situation theory provides a step analysis of how a company should tackle an incidence in a way that would enable it to reduce that damage that occurs to the organization and the impact it has on the future operations. During incidents organizations should: Tell the truth, Prove it with action, Listen to the customer, communicate to employees on how to manage for tomorrow and Conduct public relations vigorously because it has suffered a bad reputation and the whole company depends on it greatly. However, in wanting, to be honest, open and candid (Seeger, 2006) about the incidence, there would be the risk potentially exposing the organization to lawsuits and other legal vulnerabilities. Apologies express the disappointment and remorse of the company towards the victims and help regain the image of the organization. Public relations, however, do not seem necessary as the people may not respond adequately due to the incidence. Charity work and visiting the victims and their families would be a better option while public relations may be effective after some time to prove and persuade the people to trust the company again. To wrap up the process of redeeming itself and avoiding future occurrence of the incidence organization management reviewed the situation evaluates it for accuracy, this involves following up on the information gotten from employees. It then formed a series of potential solutions to the crisis based on the peoples and management suggestions. The recommendations were the critically evaluated and the best ones were adopted to prevent a similar occurrence in the future. This process is critical and important because it helps avoid the emergence of the incidence in the future, but I think experts should be hired to evaluate the crisis and offer their professional recommendations instead of using the views of the people and management. Based on expert management and the people’s attributions, an organization will respond communicatively by going through the following series of steps: first, they observe and evaluate the events. Secondly, they analyze and interpret information to ensure accuracy and relevance, choose a strategy or strategies from the available alternatives and lastly implement the solution (Hale, Dulek, & Hale, 2005).The organization finally made communication the primary focus of ensuring the organization operates smoothly and goes back to its earlier ways. Communication affects how employees learn and perform their roles. Conclusion The Dave’s restaurant food poisoning is a major business incident in the hotel industry, and it shows how poor communication can lead to significant losses regarding reputation, court fines, or even business closure. When communication is precise, clear and straight to the point, employees will be able to follow the instructions quickly with precision, and this reduces mistakes that may lead to crisis.Communication leadership is where the top management lead by example through communicating so that other employees that follow. However, this promotes workers participation, instills a sense of personal responsibility and motivates employees. The situation theory guided the organization in communication on the strategies they should use during the crisis to ensure the image of the organization is restored, and the company goes back to carrying out its operations as before. References Hale, J. E., Dulek, R. E., & Hale, D. P. 2005. Crisis response communication challenges: Building theory from qualitative data. Journal of Business Communication, Seeger, M. W. 2006. Best practices in crisis communication: An expert panel process. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 34(3), 232-244. Bell, L. M. 2010. Crisis communication: The praxis of response. The Review of Communication, 10(2), 142-155. Coombs, W. T. 2004. The impact of past crises on current crisis communication: Insights from Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Journal of Business Communication, 41(3), 265-289. Benoit, W.L., 1997. Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public relations review, 23(2), pp.177-186. Read More