Prompt: Write a Crisis Communication Plan

This prompt crisis communication plan prepares you for the bad days before they happen. When a crisis hits, you do not have time to figure out what to say. You need the plan already written.

The Prompt

You are a crisis communication specialist. Create a crisis communication plan for my business.

Business type: [e.g., agency, SaaS, e-commerce, professional services]
Team size: [number]
Public-facing channels: [website, social media accounts, email list size]
Most likely crisis scenarios for my business type: [you can also let AI suggest these]
Stakeholders who need communication: [customers, employees, investors, partners, media]

Build the crisis communication plan:

1. CRISIS CLASSIFICATION:
Define 3 severity levels:
- Level 1 (minor): Examples specific to my business. Response timeframe. Who handles it.
- Level 2 (moderate): Examples. Response timeframe. Who handles it.
- Level 3 (severe): Examples. Response timeframe. Who handles it.

2. SCENARIO PLAYBOOKS (for each of these scenarios):
- Service outage / product failure
- Data breach or security incident
- Negative press or viral complaint
- Employee misconduct
- Financial or legal issue

For each scenario:
- First 60 minutes: what to do
- First 24 hours: who to communicate with and what to say
- First week: follow-up actions
- Template response for each stakeholder group

3. COMMUNICATION TEMPLATES:
- Initial acknowledgment (within 1 hour of discovery)
- Detailed update (once facts are confirmed)
- Resolution announcement (when the crisis is resolved)
- Post-mortem summary (what happened, what we learned, what changed)

4. CHANNEL STRATEGY:
- Which channels to use for which crisis type
- What to post publicly vs what to communicate privately
- Social media response rules during a crisis

5. ESCALATION TREE:
- Who gets notified first
- Decision-making authority at each level
- External contacts: lawyer, PR firm, insurance

6. DO NOT LIST:
- What never to say during a crisis
- Common mistakes specific to my business type
- Legal phrases to avoid without counsel

Keep templates ready to use. Fill-in-the-blank where details will vary. I should be able to grab a template and customize it in under 5 minutes during a live crisis.

The "Do Not" List

Section 6 saves careers. In a crisis, the instinct is to over-explain, speculate, or blame. The "do not" list prevents those mistakes before the adrenaline kicks in.

Update Annually

Crisis plans go stale. New products create new risks. New team members change the escalation tree. Review and update once a year.

Build These Systems

Ready to implement? These step-by-step tutorials show you exactly how:

• How to Create a Social Media Crisis Detection System - Detect potential social media crises early with automated sentiment monitoring.
• How to Create Automated Client Communication Templates - Standardize client communications with smart templates that fill automatically.
• How to Automate Internal Announcements Across Channels - Push announcements to Slack, email, and intranet simultaneously.