Posts Tagged ‘Blizzard’

Outage Outrage

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Where to begin with this one…

I don’t have to tell those who have been powerless for days, that Jersey Central Power & Light is facing a huge crisis. The crisis began in August in the wake of Hurricane Irene and is still ongoing following our freak October blizzard. JCP&L’s public response to the massive outages was almost as disastrous as the disasters themselves. What can we learn from JCP&L’s crisis response?

1. Planning Never Hurts

Any vital service provider based in the Northeast MUST have a contingency plan in place for addressing every  different kind of disaster (natural or manmade) that can be faced. In the three months New Jersey has seen an earthquake, a hurricane and now a blizzard. Hospitals, waste management companies and, as JCP&L is learning, power companies must have a communications plan in place to augment the provision of their services during a time of disaster.

2. Learn From Your Mistakes

No communications plan is perfect. Understand that fact and then fix your plan after you find where imperfections lie.

Or you can take the JCP&L strategy and not change a thing. After facing severe public backlash due to poor customer service, lack of information and slow response time in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene in August, JCP&L handled our October blizzard without fixing any of these areas.

3. Honesty is the Best Policy

If you lie to the public you will get caught. Countless high profile businesses and organizations have found this out the hard way. Lying to the public when they are cold and stuck in the dark, will only mean the backlash will be that much more severe. If you do not know when power is coming back on, don’t pretend like you do. If you are facing issues responding to outages, let the public know. Provide the public with the most accurate information possible and do not make up facts just to hide the truth.

At this point, what can JCP&L do to fix their reputation?

They are going to require severe reputation assistance; a standard Band Aid will not work here. We are talking about a reputation triple bypass surgery. We expect to see some major house-cleaning within JCP&L to inject some fresh blood. Restoring trust should be their number one priority. They need to show the public how they are fixing their communications and disaster response plans. Restoring honesty will go a long way in this crisis. What do you think? Can JCP&L ever regain public trust?

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Only in New Jersey, Reputation Headlines | No Comments »

Cloudy Communications

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

As the snow finally melts away from last week’s storm, new light is being shed on New Jersey’s emergency response efforts.

As New Jersey’s Governor, Chris Christie is effectively the state’s CEO: he is the face of the state’s efforts, even when he’s not around.  But, what would your company do if your leader was unavailable during a time of emergency?  We have listed the steps your company should take to weather any storm on the horizon.

1. Prepare a contingency plan

All signs point to New Jersey’s leaders having completed this invaluable step when they realized that both the Governor and the Lt. Governor would be out of town, but they did make one mistake: not informing their constituents of the plan. When the storm hit, the public was clamoring for leadership, largely unaware that Steve Sweeney had been declared in charge. Sweeney was reportedly in touch with Christie during the situation, and had full authorization to perform any of the actions necessary to lead the state through the storm.

2. Maintain internal communications to foster a consistent stance

Issues arose when different members of the Governor’s office spoke out with varying opinions on the severity of the storm and their response to it. Inconsistency is read by the public as disorganization, so even if this step entails delaying public comment until an appropriate and accurate statement is ready to be made, it still has value.

3. Leaders must embrace the public eye

If this was Steve Sweeney’s battle to fight, so be it: but if he’s the one fighting it, he should also be the one handling the surrounding media. Anyone unlucky enough to be caught on the roads that night saw that New Jerseyans were running around like chickens with their heads cut off (parking cars in the middle of major highways to wait for someone to clear the snow, for example), but they had nobody to turn to. More than people care about exactly who is saying what, they care that the person in charge is speaking to them. Simply maintaining a media presence is sometimes enough to assuage fears, even if nothing major exists to be said in that moment.

Giving a clear message with a well defined point-person is the key to establishing and maintaining effective external communications during a crisis. A communication breakdown can lead to a reputation headache or worse. By following these three simple steps, your company can avoid costly reputation disasters during a crisis.

Tags:, , , , ,
Posted in Legal Reputation, Only in New Jersey, Reputation Headlines | No Comments »