Get Crisis Comms Right
and Meet Customer Demand
Get your crisis communications right and meet customer demand
Despite concerns over the Coronavirus outbreak, new industry reports reveal that British travellers are determined not to let the mass media dampen their holiday booking habits. Debbie Flynn, Managing Partner at travel marketing and PR firm Finn Partners says “Whilst undoubtedly the situation is hitting the industry hard, our research tells us that Brits are unlikely to give up their holidays if the price is right.” According to research:
The fact that people will still travel offers up a wealth of opportunity for travel companies to stand out from the competition. Keeping your customers safe while delivering clear and helpful communications during a time of much potential frustration is something that will be greatly appreciated, and long remembered.
One way to do this is by following the WTTC Crisis Readiness report on how to communicate well; to educate and safeguard, concisely highlight key policies such as booking flexibility, and keep customers updated on any disruptions. In terms of recommendations, the report identifies three key areas to get right:
1. Preparedness
Build trust-based coalitions. Developing a comprehensive preparedness plan through collaboration between your local government and tourism organisations helps ensure you’re prepared for the next crisis that emerges.
Assess readiness & maintain emergency action plans. Identify gaps in response capabilities and put an operational all-hazards emergency action plan in place. By taking a human-centric approach, you can focus on how to safeguard your customers while being able to disseminate information, provide reassurances, and share best practice.
Educate to reduce fear. Access to factual information helps raise awareness and improves understanding of risk, ultimately supporting a change in attitudes and behaviours concerning security.
2. Management
Communicate fast with facts and transparency. Successful responses require proactive, honest, transparent, and factually accurate communication. According to Margaret Chan, Former World Health Director General, “Rumours and panic spread faster. 90% of economic losses during a disease outbreak result from uncoordinated public efforts to avoid infection.” Detailed information on ongoing health and safety issues communicated with honesty can foster trust while mitigating fear and panic, ultimately helping to minimise financial damage. The most effective way to achieve this is by using a crisis management response system with multi lingual and multi-channel capabilities, enabling you to communicate quickly, with relevant and timely information.
Activate emergency plan. Learn from past experiences and put your emergency plan into action, ensuring you have dedicated resources to execute. Equally important is the coalition of trusted partners. This should be developed prior to the crisis, and be mobilised and ready to respond.
3. Responsiveness
Invite the world back when you’re ready. Effective communication can let customers know when you’re a ready to welcome them come back. Communicating with transparency and ownership of the crisis will help you re- compete for lost ground.
Entice travellers to return. After a crisis your customers may have data-driven or perceived safety concerns. By communicating the right incentives such as new travel facilitation policies to travel insurance, you can shorten the road to recovery and persuade customers to come back.
Know your travel segments. Understanding the nuances of your customers and their motivations will help you develop a strategic marketing plan based on the new market situation. In doing so you can identify which market segments are likely to return first after an incident, and focus on this target audience first.
Rebuild stronger and better. Post-crisis, your goal should be to bounce ahead by designing and building a more resilient system with a streamlined communications strategy. The recovery phase may also present a good opportunity to rethink your product offering and target audience.
In summary, above all else your focus should be on health and safety first – then reputation. With the public still willing to travel despite the coronavirus uncertainties, you have a huge opportunity to not only protect your brand reputation from a PR perspective; but show the public you genuinely care, and contribute towards enhancing the overall resilience of the travel industry against potential future crises. All of this of course hinges on your communication strategy, and ability to get information and updates out in a sensitive and timely manner.
For help or more information on crisis communication management, or for a free demo of CrisisComms – the travel industry’s only crisis communications platform – please contact us today.
Ready to make your communications matter?
Get in touch to learn more about how we can help you to communicate more purposefully.