Crisis Playbook (Global)

A crisis arrives without warning, so the playbook must exist before it is needed. Three ground rules: (1) do not react before you have facts — most crises look worse than they are in the first 30 minutes; (2) do not stay silent past 4 hours on a spreading crisis, because silence reads as admission; (3) handled well, a crisis builds trust; handled badly, it destroys it permanently.

Information gathering

Read the 15-social-listening-global report if available (early detection). Before doing anything, answer 4 questions:

1. What type of crisis is this? Match it against the L1-L5 table below.
2. How fast is it spreading? Ten people or ten thousand? One channel, or has it jumped channels?
3. Where did it start? An unhappy customer, a creator or influencer, a competitor, a regulator, or the press?
4. What is actually true? Which fact is disputed, do you have evidence, and do you have enough to respond at all?

If you do not have enough information: publish one short line confirming you are investigating and commit to a specific update time. Do not go silent, and do not respond to unverified claims.

Principles