It makes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you& apos; ll do things differently .” — Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
Founders across the country continue to grapple with the consequences of the COVID-1 9 crisis, and realign their simulate to make it more relevant to the current scenario.
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In the current scenario, the role played by communication cannot be emphasised enough. Here& apos; s a immediate snapshot of how prominent Indian startups acted in the wake of a crisis and our take on it.
Early and proactive communication
In March this year, PhonePe, one of India’s preceding pay systems and digital wallet fellowships, discovered itself in the eye of the commotion when its exclusive UPI bank partner was placed in a moratorium. This led to a halting in any form of transactions on the stage.
To enable continued access, architects at PhonePe would need to switch to a new bank marriage. The company’s leadership and communications sciences that followed in the next 24 hours helped proselytize a crisis into a means of developing an even stronger and deeper relationship with patrons by communicating transparently, routinely, and proactively at regular intervals through the crisis.
The first step to successfully coping a crisis is the speed to response- the sooner you take charge of the situation, the higher your chances are to minimise its effects. PhonePe didn’t waste any time from when the crisis hit to initiate communications with their patrons, providing them with lucidity as well as relief, thereby avoiding the crisis from snowballing into a larger problem.
Highlights from its communication strategy: From sketch the issue at hand to detailing paces and measures being undertaken to resolve the issue, interim updates on their progress — some of these instantly coming from the founders themselves, along with revises continuing to stream in even after the crisis, on the plan for the way forward, relief measurements, basically maintaining customers informed through every step of the course.
Customers even required in order to social media to praise and acknowledge how the company steered the crisis, despite that their server was down for close to 24 hours — a situation that would have otherwise prompted trolls and endless ailments were it not for Phone Pe’s proactive outreach.
Key teaches Speed to response: patrons need to hear it first from the company , not third-party sourcesRecognise and acknowledge that there’s a problem and you’re doing your best to solve for it and retrieve stakeholder trust.Frequent and proactive communication: consistent reassurance, even when you may not have any new information to share can help prevent negative posts/ trolls from consumers demanding an explanation, or complaints on poor customer service.Identify the claim communication channel to reach your audiences — be it social media, a newsletter, a video send on WhatsApp, a formal press release, or any other platform. Phone Pe took to social media, as one of its primary communication channels to alert purchasers of the crisis.
Also Read[ Matrix Moments] From starting at IIT and hacking their way ahead: the travel of Razorpay foundersLeadership and Empathy amidst a crisisOla Cabs, India& apos; s conducting mobility pulpit, like others in the industry, was adversely affected by the lockdown. Apart from its daily operations be adversely affected, the income of one of its key stakeholders — the driver-partner community — was severely affected due to the lockdown, and the company felt the heat even more.
Ola exploited this opportunity to focus on easing the burden for the move parish and propelled its own initiative announced #DrivetheDriverFund with the objective of offering relief to its driver-partners by providing crucial supplyings, as well as financial support for medical disasters for them and their families.
This was done using contributions from the Ola Group, investors, and through a crowdfunding stage for citizens and other institutions.
The fund was open to all cab, auto and taxi motorists across the country to benefit from, irrespective of whether or not they were associated with Ola. Tens of thousands of driver-families were positively impacted by the fund in these difficult times.
Separately, the company also worked with various state governments to launch” Ola Emergency” to provide transportation to and from hospitals for all non-COVID-1 9 medical trips.
Key learnings
a) An empathetic approach to a crisis can give your brand an opportunity to truly showcase your company’s culture and significances. Running above and beyond for your key stakeholders, who are a vital asset to your business, in their experience of need, speaks works about your firebrand, perhaps more than any digital, social, and print safarus could ever convey and is testament to your leadership.
b) A sharp, focused, and succinct communication plan designed specifically to solve for your topmost priority/ key focus country. In Ola’s case, looking after its driver-partners with medical and financial assistance trumped all other both problems and it worked to solve for that as the single point agenda through the crisis.
The Aftermath
It is common for companies to focus on high engagement during the crisis and often lose impetu formerly the crisis has blown over. It’s just as important to keep your stakeholders endlessly locked even after a crisis; a continuous and open flow of communications aids forestall potential troubles by apprising customers with details on the way forward.
Urban Company and Vogo, two foremost startups in the Indian ecosystem, have both been impacted in different ways due to the coronavirus crisis. With the relaxation of the lockdown to be introduced, they’ve lay new ways to oblige themselves more relevant and more equipped to deal with the new regular continue customers health and safety concerns as their first priorities.
Through social media, they enunciated concerns that customers may have and took it head-on by launching new features and service offerings to mitigate each of those concerns, and quite literally situated the words” purchaser is king” into action by doing so.
For instance, Urban Company exerted social media to be notified adherents about the health and safety measures being incorporated for its service providers and customers benefit;it compounded this with testimonial videosfrom clients to further emphasise on the precautions taken and rebutted any other doubts that customers could have through this series of videos.
Similarly, Vogo tweeted about its recently introduced” Vogo Keep”, its own initiative that gives sanitised scooters to your doorstep for long-term rental plans for critical circulate– thereby allowing you to use it as your own personal vehicle, to meet with the new create of requirements in a post-COVID-1 9 world.
It’s important to adapt your mannequin with new solutions or discrepancies of existing services to serve your clients’ current requirements, and this can only be achieved through a pre-emptive communication strategy.
Key learningPost-crisis communication is a crucial part of the process, as clients need to be in the know on how your product/ busines render will differ after the crisis.
They need to understand what specific and discernible alterations will be brought about, and how will the user event conversion, what is the underlying objective for drawing out the changes, as well as details of open channels for feedback and patron FAQs.
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Tesla manufacturing ventilators during the COVID-1 9 outbreak, or closer residence, Domino’s giving Aashirwad aata in addition to pizzas to meet the shortage of daily essential grocery pieces, conveyed improved understanding of the crisis, and pictured customers how they& apos; re pivoting to adapt to a new environment while continuing to stay relevant.
This is a great example of finding a way to reach and serve your customers even when your primary actions may be at a standstill. Key learning
Every crisis introduces with it a deep-seated of possibilities. As a business owner, you need to find a way to positively participate in the crisis- how you administer a crisis truly characterizes your label and contours how people perceive you.
Without being opportunistic, coming up with a solution that demonstrates your company importances as well as provides customers with a qualified account of your concoction/ service that can meet the current need brought on by the crisis, contributes to creating organic word-of-mouth that can hold your brand in good stead in the long run.
Media management
Most business don’t publicise their PR strategy for self-evident concludes, but effective media control is an instrumental piece of the crisis communication baffle.
Keeping a vigilant check on media coverage about your brand is paramount. For example, the consequences of COVID-1 9 extends to every industry in varying magnitudes, intelligence propagated about your busines by the media to your patrons is important to control to ensure circumstantial and accurate information is being reported, in order to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control.
It& apos; s crucial to be cognizant of the changing media countryside with online and broadcast pulpits exploding, with accurate the purpose of determining which word of media is more efficient for your publics. This also includes leveraging your own social controls/ in-app communications to showcase genuine leadership.
Measures to be undertaken
Here& apos; s what you can do to ensure effective crisis communication.
a) Put a crisis communications response team in place as your first argument of defense.
b) Preparedness is the most important part of crisis response; communicators should take the lead on ensuring preparedness by putting in place a crisis response design together with a crisis template testimony as a ready response for media queries.
c) Crisis key messaging workshop for spokesperson- adapt your symbols& apos; key letter if needed to make it more fitting to the situation at hand.
d) Tie up with relevant symbol envoys and influencers to help amplify and widen the reach of your crisis key message.
e) Lastly, implement a crisis communication playbook for the conglomerate to follow across all communication touchpoints( internal and external ), to ensure complete consistency and uniformity in your messaging.
( Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)
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