For the first 2018 issue of the Be Prepared magazine on emergency management in Belgium, PM wrote an article on the purpose of analysing perceptions and sentiments in a crisis. In the article, our strategic crisis advisor Robbert Meulemeester explains how crisis management teams can benefit from such analysis to improve both the quality and accuracy of the decision making process.

Forming a clear and collective strategy within the communication team is often neglected or even forgotten when it comes to crisis communication. Facing high pressure by customers and public opinion, organisations ‘under attack’ tend to jump to what to say (messages) and where to say it (channels) as soon as possible. Even in stressful situations, it is however essential to be aware of the ‘bigger picture’. Ask yourself: What am I trying to achieve by (not) communicating?

The main outlines of a crisis communication strategy are mostly considered as a policy and governance level topic, and therefore discussed within the crisis management team. The challenge of crisis communication is that the “crisis management state of mind” that members of such teams find themselves in during a crisis, disables them to form a clear view on what’s happening outside of the co-ordination room they are in. You will need someone (or a dedicated team, or an external firm) to fill you in with the outside world’s perception in order to make the decisions and define the actions that matter the most.

Robbert argues in this Dutch publication that sentiment analysis will get management teams to better appreciate the internal and external impact of a crisis situation, therefore positively influencing their crisis policies. He further discusses a few simple steps to include perception analysis within the crisis management decision making process.