Professional Perspectives on the Use of a Crisis Communication Plan

Abstract

A standout amongst the most significant concerns for PR practitioners is the need to have a crisis communication plan. It is crucial for a company to preserve its image and reputation, and a PR practitioner plays vital role in accomplishing this goal but this cannot be accomplished if PR professionals do not have a tool to handle crisis. A crisis communication goes beyond just communicating with the publics but it helps in protecting the image and reputation of the affected organization. This paper seeks to find out how PR practitioners engage a crisis communication plan during a crisis and how necessary it is to always have a plan.  To achieve this, survey research design was adopted with the use of questionnaire as instrument for data collection. These copies of questionnaires were distributed to five PR agencies in Lagos state and were strictly filled by PR practitioners. This was to enable the researcher achieve the main purpose for the research which is getting the views of PR practitioners in using a crisis communication plan. The findings show that although PR practitioners handle crisis, they do not have a plan ready to tackle crisis. They rather wait for crisis to first happen before they come up with a plan. Another major finding is that these PR practitioners after implementing a plan, do not evaluate if the plan was successful or not.