Dealing with historical complaints
It can take a lot of courage to make a historical complaint, and the party coming forward should be assured of certain practicalities: Where will this information go? When is a formal response expected? What is the process?
Part of good governance is ensuring that your organisation has adequate policies, processes, and procedures to manage a historical complaint. Each complaint, regardless of its nature, should be addressed with the utmost compassion, confidence, and seriousness it deserves.
Why would a Board involve PR in the historical complaints process?
Public relations advice is often sought when the media becomes involved or there is an influx of public interest.
Public relations practitioners play a crucial role in ensuring that the organisation communicates ethically with its stakeholder groups, keeping them informed and involved in the process as transparently and quickly as possible.
This process, however, can be quite complex, as saying the wrong thing can have legal ramifications; therefore, public relations advisors are used to working with numerous parties to communicate with stakeholders.
Depending on the nature of the circumstance, this can include working closely with internal management, the Board, lawyers, the Police, and government authorities to sign off statements to meet journalist deadlines - as well as simultaneously communicating with internal stakeholders, investors and partners, members, customers and so on.
When organisations are unprepared for an issue or an influx of media or public enquiries, they may be slow to respond or choose a ‘no comment’ stance. This can create a perception of covering something up and worsen the situation.
Our advice?
Be prepared for issues and crisis management, whether from a historical complaint or otherwise. Media and public enquiries can arise from many instances, including:
Preparing means ensuring your organisation has a process, a crisis management team (CMT) and a media-trained spokesperson. If you need help or assistance in this area, please book your complimentary call. You can also download our crisis communications handbook.
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