Say it FIRST...how to control the message before others beat you to it

Many of my examples of what not do do with public relations and communications come from real-world examples of things I see in my own life (and not necessarily situations involving past clients).

One such example under the "say it first" category comes from my boys' charter school. Last year, two students were caught having relations under the stairwell in the upper school. And, yes...I do mean the hard-core variety.

What happens more often than not is that businesses and organizations aren't prepared for this kind of "crisis communications." I can't tell you how many times I see this in daily life. Situations spin completely out of control because a business or organization chooses to say nothing, rather than address a situation. Usually, they are simply too afraid to say anything, for fear that it will be the wrong thing.

Silence often leads to speculation, distrust, frustration and anger. With social media permeating every facet of our lives, there's no such luxury of remaining silent and hoping that people don't hear about something. With our school's situation, the parent Facebook page was inundated with posts as soon as the high school students returned home that day and shared with parents what they heard had happened between two students caught in the act.

Many parents were outraged and felt the school was covering the incident up with their total lack of silence. It led to a massive blow up including conspiracy theories and many parents were quite vocal in asserting that the situation was not being dealt with or handled appropriately by administration. Some of the upset parents turned their ugliness further by singling out the parents of the two involved teens, even questioning their parenting skills and (probable) lack of religion. One parent was adamant that she was going to call the media and legislators in Raleigh over this. (She should probably have included Oprah on the list too....two teens having sex? That's never happened before!) It took a few days, but eventually the board's moderator (a parent) pulled the thread down. In the meantime, however, it was a pr disaster for the school.

What could have been done to avoid this? Saying something...anything. Saying something is always is better than saying nothing. All the school needed to do was to issue an e-mail like the following:

Dear parents,

As you may be learning from your children, there was an incident in the Upper School where two students were engaged in inappropriate conduct on campus. We are addressing this situation with the students and their parents, and hope that you will respect the families and students involved as we work through disciplinary measures and move forward.

While we are not making light of the seriousness of this incident, we hope that you will keep in mind that teenagers often make terrible and inappropriate decisions as they evolve into young adults. As adults, we need to remind ourselves of this and be sensitive in not contributing further to the embarrassment of the involved parties.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call me personally.

Best regards,

Principle Hodge (name changed)


Would this have been hard? It acknowledges that something happened (without going into graphic details). It reminds us that we're all human and as adults we probably shouldn't seek to tar and feather the students. It also openly encourages a private discussion for anyone who may have further concerns.

This simple letter would have shut down the rumor mill before it even started. I don't know if there would have been posts about the incident on the parent page. I do know that it would have prevented about 95% of the furor over the incident.

• The parent who started the whole thread about a cover-up and conspiracy wouldn't have anything to yell about.
• We would have all been subtly reminded that most of us have done one or two really horrible things in our youth and as bad as this incident was, these kids don't need their lives and reputations further destroyed.
• Any parents that felt like they needed more information would have felt welcomed to approach the principal by his invitation to call.

Being silent allows others to do all the talking. Do you want the agenda and tone set for you, or do you want to come out first and control the message?

Say something first....anything.

The power of an apology

There's an interesting thing about human nature. We all make mistakes. We can acknowledge we make mistakes, as do others. However, many of this have this unrelenting need to hear someone acknowledge when they've made a mistake through an "I'm sorry."

Why is the "I'm Sorry" so important in daily life and communications? I suppose it resonates with people because they feel their issue was heard...they were right...it cleans the slate and allows both parties to move forward.

While there are hundreds (my husband will likely say thousands) of issues I can think of where a simple "I'm sorry" from someone would have turned things around and allowed me to move forward in a positive tone, one stands out in particular. This was a mind-boggling example of poor customer service:

At my salon, I used to pay for a senior stylist. Women are all familiar that there are different prices charged for haircuts and blow-outs based upon a stylists "level" of training. I was paying $45 for the cut/style (a good ten years ago). My stylist cut my hair as usual, but since she overbooked herself, she sent over "Amber," a stylist in training to blow me out (sounds dirty typing this) and style my hair. Part of why I enjoyed going to the salon was to get that really nice blow dry...the one I have never in decades been able to replicate at home.

I feel awkward and uncomfortable saying anything to my regular stylist and sit fuming while Amber styles my hair with a disappointing show of talent. This defeated the purpose of paying top dollar for the senior level stylist. I decide to sit quiet and say something to the salon manager when I paid.

I ask for the manager when I'm checking out. I discreetly pulled her aside and reminded her that I've been coming to that salon for years, and was disappointed that my regular stylist didn't style my hair and that a trainee was sent to finish me out. I wasn't looking for a free haircut or any kind of a discount, I just wanted to be heard and understood. The manager proceeds to tell me that this was "for my own benefit," as my stylist was quite busy and using Amber helped her. I'm scratching my head at this point, not really understanding how Amber helping my stylist was of any benefit to me, when I was paying for a certain level of experience. I think I somewhat snarkily pointed out to the manager that the real benefit was to the salon and my stylist so they could pack in more clients, rather than focusing appropriate attention to each client.

From there, our conversation spiraled (as they often do when I don't hear what I need to hear). The salon manager remained defensive and rather bitchy about the whole incident, finally throwing her hands up that I was not satisfied with her answer.

All I wanted was a simple apology. "I'm so sorry you had an unpleasant visit, Ms. Rafizadeh. Your stylist was getting backed up, and while I realize this was an error in our over-booking, I thought having Amber style you would be preferable to waiting longer."

Had I heard this, I probably would have apologized in turn for saying anything and expressed appreciation that they tried to rectify the situation (albeit with Amber).

Instead, I left angry and never returned to that salon again. Never underestimate the power of a simple apology to turn around an angry or disappointed customer. There's something very humbling in hearing an apology from someone that can turn anyone, even me, around.