The crisis communication checklist: prepare, respond, recover

The crisis communication checklist is the list a communications lead keeps ready for the day something goes badly wrong: a product fault, an accident, a data breach, a damaging allegation. It has three parts. Prepare covers what must exist before any crisis. Respond covers the first hours and days. Recover covers what happens once the immediate pressure has passed. A crisis plan is the fuller document the checklist sits on.

The checklist draws on the professional bodies and on research. The Chartered Institute of Public Relations' Crisis Communications Network made Drafting a Crisis Communication Plan its first skills guide, exploring the stages of a crisis and the steps to include in a plan¹; the guide covers defining a crisis, mapping stakeholders, preparing messages, running simulations and reviewing after the event². The Public Relations Society of America advises preparing a holding statement in anticipation of media enquiries, drafted with legal counsel and leadership³. The UK Government Communication Service's crisis communications operating model, published in May 2023, formalises the structures, roles and responsibilities of communicators in a crisis and describes itself as a living structure, updated as lessons emerge⁴; the GCS also publishes guidance on crisis communication⁵.

On how to respond, W. Timothy Coombs's situational crisis communication theory, set out in Corporate Reputation Review in 2007, advises matching the response to the level of crisis responsibility stakeholders attribute to the organisation and the reputational threat, and groups crises into victim, accidental and preventable clusters⁶. The international standard ISO 22361:2022 gives guidance on building and continually improving a strategic crisis management capability, including crisis communication, and is aimed at top management⁷. Throughout, the professional codes apply: IPRA's code of conduct commits members to honesty and accuracy⁸.

1. Work through Prepare now, while nothing is wrong, and date each tick.
2. Rehearse at least once a year with a realistic scenario; update the plan with what broke.
3. When a crisis starts, open Respond and work down it; the first lines are about facts and safety, not statements.
4. Keep a decision log of what was known, decided and said, and when.
5. Close with Recover: the after-action review is part of the response, not an optional extra.

Illustrative: the fictional Ourika Roasters finds a batch of bags labelled with the wrong roast date.

The crisis team meets within the hour. Facts first: which batch, how many customers, any safety risk (none). Scheduled promotional posts are paused. A holding statement, already drafted for product issues, is adapted and approved: what happened, what customers should do, when the next update will come. Café staff hear first, then subscribers by email, then social and press. Because the error is the roaster's own (a preventable crisis), the brand apologises plainly, replaces the bags and explains the fix to its labelling check. The after-action review a week later adds a second label check to the process and updates the plan.

• Writing the plan during the crisis Holding statements and approvals belong in Prepare³.
• Speaking before the facts are checked A wrong first statement becomes a second crisis.
• Employees last They hear it from the news and repeat it with their own errors.
• Denial where the organisation is to blame Responsibility shapes which response protects reputation⁶.
• No review Without an after-action review, the next crisis repeats the last one².

• The CIPR's crisis plan guide^1, 2; PRSA on the first hour³.
• The GCS operating model⁴ and guidance⁵.
• Coombs on situational crisis communication theory⁶; ISO 22361⁷; the IPRA code⁸.
• On IMC Report: public relations and the message house.