How to Communicate with Stakeholders During a Crisis
Average reading time: 12 minute(s)
Every organization will face a crisis at some point. A cyberattack, a product recall, a leadership scandal, a natural disaster. What separates the companies that recover quickly from the ones that spiral is not luck. It is how well they communicate when things go wrong.
Poor communication during a crisis does not just frustrate people. It destroys trust, invites legal scrutiny, and makes recovery take longer. Stakeholders who feel left in the dark fill the void with assumptions, and those assumptions are rarely favorable to your organization.
The principles that make crisis communication work are straightforward. Be transparent. Be fast. Be consistent. Show genuine empathy. Get the facts right. These are not abstract ideals. They are practical standards your team can train for and execute under pressure.
Identifying Key Stakeholders
Before any crisis hits, you need to know who your stakeholders are and what they need from you. Not every group needs the same information at the same time. Treating all stakeholders identically wastes time and often makes the situation harder to manage.
Internal Stakeholders
Employees, managers, and board members are your internal audience. They need to know how the crisis affects their work, their safety, and the organization’s direction. If your internal audience is confused or uninformed, that confusion leaks outward fast.
Internal communication should focus on clear guidance, honest answers to hard questions, and consistent reinforcement of the organization’s values and priorities. Employees who feel informed and supported are far more likely to stay focused and represent the organization well.
External Stakeholders
Customers, suppliers, partners, regulators, and the media make up your external audience. They need accurate, relevant information delivered consistently. These groups shape your reputation, and what they believe about your response will outlast the crisis itself.
External communication needs to demonstrate accountability. It is not enough to say the right things once. Regulators and media in particular will track whether your actions match your words over time.
Prioritizing and Segmenting Stakeholders
Not all stakeholders carry equal weight in every crisis. A data breach affects customers and regulators most directly. A supply chain failure affects partners and operations first. Rank your stakeholder groups by their level of exposure to the specific incident.
Use a simple matrix to help your team make fast decisions about who gets contacted first and through which channel.
| Stakeholder Group | Communication Priority | Preferred Channel | Key Concern |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | High | Internal email, town hall | Safety, job security, guidance |
| Board of Directors | High | Direct call or briefing | Legal exposure, financial impact |
| Customers | High | Email, website, social media | Service impact, data security |
| Regulators | High | Formal written notice | Compliance, reporting obligations |
| Suppliers and Partners | Medium | Direct outreach | Operational continuity |
| Media | Medium | Press statement, spokesperson | Accurate public narrative |
Developing a Crisis Communication Plan
A crisis communication plan is not a document you write after something goes wrong. It is written in advance, tested regularly, and updated as your organization changes. Without one, your team will improvise under pressure, and improvised communication during a crisis rarely goes well.
Roles and Responsibilities
Every crisis communication team needs a primary spokesperson, a backup, and clearly defined support roles. The team should include people from communications, legal, HR, and operations. No one person can handle all of this alone, and no one should be guessing about their role when an incident starts.
Designate one person to own the message and one person to own the facts. Keep those two functions coordinated but separate. Message owners handle tone and delivery. Fact owners verify accuracy before anything goes out.
Key Messages and Talking Points
Write holding statements for your most likely crisis scenarios before they happen. A holding statement is a short, honest, pre-approved message that buys time while you gather facts. Something like “We are aware of the situation and are working to get you accurate information as quickly as possible” is far better than silence.
Your talking points should align with your organization’s values and be consistent across every channel. Update them as the situation changes. Stale talking points are as damaging as no talking points at all.
Communication Channels
| Channel | Best Used For | Limitations |
|---|---|---|
| Detailed updates to employees and customers | Slower reach, can be missed | |
| Website or newsroom | Official record of communications | Requires active traffic to find |
| Social media | Fast public updates | High noise, fast scrutiny |
| Press release | Media and regulatory audiences | Formal tone, slower to produce |
| Town hall or webinar | Internal employee briefings | Requires scheduling |
| Phone or direct outreach | Board, executives, key partners | Time intensive |
Templates and Approval Workflows
Pre-built templates for press statements, email updates, social media posts, and internal memos save time when every minute counts. Get these approved by legal and communications leadership before any crisis occurs. A template that has already cleared legal review can go out in minutes. A new draft written from scratch may take hours.
Communicating During the Initial Stages of a Crisis
The first hours of a crisis set the tone for everything that follows. Your team needs to move fast without being reckless. The goal is to acknowledge what is happening and provide direction before the information vacuum gets filled by speculation.
Activate Your Plan Immediately
The moment a credible incident is confirmed, activate your crisis communication plan. Pull the team together, assess what you know, identify what you do not know, and assign roles. Do not wait for full information before communicating. Waiting too long is itself a communication decision, and it is the wrong one.
In 2010, BP waited too long to take ownership of the Deepwater Horizon narrative. The company’s early communication missteps compounded the reputational damage far beyond the physical disaster itself. You can read the full breakdown from the Harvard Business Review here: https://hbr.org/2010/05/the-5-mistakes-bp-made-with-th
Gather Facts Before You Speak
Verify before you publish. Communicate to your team that unverified information does not leave the building. Designate two or three trusted internal sources who feed accurate information to the communication team. That chain of verification protects you from having to walk back statements.
First External Message
Your first public message does not need to have all the answers. It needs to show that you are aware, you are taking it seriously, and you are actively working on it. Three sentences can be enough if those three sentences are honest.
What to include in your first public statement:
- Acknowledgment that the situation is real and known
- A clear statement that your team is actively responding
- Where stakeholders can go for updates
- A timeline for your next communication
What to leave out until you have verified facts:
- Specific blame or cause
- Financial impact numbers
- Promises you cannot guarantee yet
Maintaining Consistent and Transparent Communication
Once the initial communication goes out, the work of maintaining trust begins. Stakeholders will accept difficult news far better than they accept silence or inconsistency. Your job from this point forward is to keep the information flowing accurately and on a predictable schedule.
Set a Communication Cadence
Pick a schedule and stick to it. If you say updates will come every 12 hours, they need to come every 12 hours. Even an update that says “We have no new information yet, but we are still working on it” is better than missing your own deadline.
| Phase | Recommended Update Frequency |
|---|---|
| First 24 hours | Every 2 to 4 hours |
| Days 2 to 7 | Once or twice daily |
| Week 2 and beyond | Every 2 to 3 days or as milestones occur |
One Source of Truth
Designate one central location where all official information lives. This could be a dedicated page on your website, an internal intranet hub, or a pinned post on your primary social channel. All other communications point back to this single source. When different channels say different things, trust collapses fast.
Be Honest About What You Do Not Know
Stakeholders can handle uncertainty. What they cannot handle is finding out you knew more than you said or said something that turned out to be false. If you do not have an answer, say so and commit to a timeline for getting one.
Demonstrating empathy is not soft. It is strategic. Stakeholders who feel heard and respected are significantly less likely to escalate complaints to media or regulators.
Addressing Misinformation and Reputational Risks
Misinformation moves faster than facts. During a crisis, your organization’s name will appear in conversations you are not part of, on platforms you may not monitor, in languages you may not track. You need a system for this.
Monitor Actively
Set up keyword alerts for your organization’s name, the incident type, and your leadership names. Tools like Google Alerts, Mention, Meltwater, or Brandwatch provide real-time tracking. Assign someone to monitor these streams full time during active crisis periods.
Correct Misinformation Directly
When false information spreads, correct it fast and factually. Do not attack the source. Simply state what is accurate and link to your official documentation. Engaging in arguments on social media rarely helps and often makes things worse.
Johnson and Johnson’s response to the 1982 Tylenol tampering crisis remains one of the most studied examples of effective crisis communication. The company moved fast, communicated transparently, and took decisive action that rebuilt public trust within months. Full case study here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369560/
Media and Spokesperson Preparation
Your spokespeople need media training before a crisis, not during one. This means practice interviews, recorded run-throughs, and Q&A preparation for hard scenarios. An unprepared spokesperson can do more damage in a three-minute interview than the original incident.
Spokesperson Preparation Checklist
- Approved talking points reviewed and memorized
- Three key messages rehearsed clearly
- Practice responses to worst-case questions
- Guidance on what to say when you do not have an answer yet
- Contact for legal review of any off-script responses
Communicating Recovery and Resilience
As the immediate crisis stabilizes, your communication tone shifts. You move from managing damage to demonstrating progress. Stakeholders want to see that the organization has learned something and is moving in the right direction.
Share Milestones Publicly
Recovery updates should be specific and measurable. “We are making progress” tells people nothing. “We have restored service for 80% of affected customers and expect full restoration by Friday” tells people something they can hold you accountable to, which is exactly what builds trust.
Share Real Stories
Concrete stories from real employees or customers who adapted during the crisis are more persuasive than any press release. These stories humanize the recovery and give stakeholders something to share and remember. They show that your organization is made of real people responding to a real situation.
Thank Stakeholders
Acknowledge the patience your stakeholders showed. This is not just good manners. It signals that you noticed and that their loyalty was not taken for granted. A short, sincere acknowledgment in a post-crisis update goes a long way.
Communicate What You Are Doing Differently
One of the most effective things you can say in the recovery phase is what you have changed. Stakeholders want to know the same thing will not happen again. Share specific improvements to your processes, systems, or training. Give them a reason to believe.
Best Practices and Lessons Learned
The work does not end when the crisis does. Organizations that treat each incident as a learning opportunity build communication capabilities that serve them for years. Those that move on without reflection tend to repeat the same mistakes.
Post-Crisis Review
Run a structured debrief within two to four weeks of the incident. Gather your communication team, legal, HR, and operations. Review what went out, when it went out, how it was received, and what you would do differently. Document the findings and update your crisis communication plan.
Post-Crisis Review Checklist
- Were stakeholders contacted in the right order and timeline?
- Did messaging stay consistent across all channels?
- Were any statements retracted or corrected?
- How did media coverage compare to your intended narrative?
- What questions from stakeholders caught the team off guard?
- Did the communication plan itself hold up under real conditions?
Gather Stakeholder Feedback
Survey customers and employees after the crisis. Ask direct questions about how they felt about the communication they received. The feedback will surface gaps in your plan that internal reviews will miss.
Train Regularly
Run tabletop simulations at least once a year. Put your communication team through a simulated crisis scenario that requires them to draft statements, manage social media pressure, brief executives, and coordinate across departments. Skills that are not practiced fade fast.
| Training Type | Frequency | Who Should Attend |
|---|---|---|
| Tabletop exercise | Annually | Full crisis communication team |
| Spokesperson media training | Every 18 months | Executives and designated spokespeople |
| Channel and tools review | Every 6 months | Communications and IT |
| Plan documentation review | Every 6 months | Communications and legal |
Build a Culture of Transparency Year-Round
Organizations that communicate openly during normal operations handle crisis communication far better. Stakeholders who already trust you give you more benefit of the doubt when things go wrong. Transparency is not a crisis tactic. It is a long-term operating standard.
Frequently Asked Questions
How fast should you communicate after a crisis starts?
Within the first hour if possible. Your first message does not need all the answers. It needs to confirm you are aware and taking action. Silence in the first hour is interpreted as denial or disorganization.
What if you do not have accurate information yet?
Say so honestly. “We are gathering information and will provide an update by [time]” is always better than guessing or staying silent. Stakeholders can accept uncertainty. They cannot accept being misled.
Who should be the spokesperson?
This depends on the severity of the crisis. Major incidents require executive-level spokespeople. Operational or technical incidents can be handled by department heads. Legal matters often require involvement from legal counsel before anyone speaks publicly. Whoever speaks needs media training and approved talking points before they step in front of a camera or reporter.
Should you communicate on social media during a crisis?
Yes, but carefully. Social media moves fast and mistakes spread faster. Have a designated social media manager on your crisis team who coordinates with the broader communications group before posting. Do not post in real time without review.
How long should crisis communication continue?
Until the situation is fully resolved and stakeholders have received a clear recovery update. Many organizations stop communicating too early. If stakeholders are still asking questions, the communication phase is not over.