Facing a crisis is often considered to be a normal phenomenon in the life of any organisation. For a company, a crisis can be any form of event or situation that poses a threat to its ability to effectively operate. Such situations put the stability of a company at risk, which is why most companies have extensive crisis management plans to help protect themselves from the impact of potential crises.
Crises can arise in various forms – such as organizational crises, financial crises, technological crises, personnel crises and so on. All of these have a devastating effect on businesses, with the potential to make it difficult or even impossible to conduct usual day-to-day activities. If not managed properly, it could lead to the loss of important customers and perhaps even result in the company going out of business. However, with a good plan in place, companies are able to take steps to minimise the potential impact of a disaster and also try to prevent it from actually taking place.
Crises in the FinTech Industry
Facing a crisis in the FinTech industry is no different to facing crises in other industries. Common types of crises faced by the FinTech industry include technology failures, security breeches and major changes to regulations that have an effect on company operations.
A technology crisis usually occurs as a result of the failure of a technology, causing disruptions or problems in the overall operations of your company. This can range from software failures to power outages and need to be addressed as quickly as possible in order to get your business up and running again.
A security or data breach can have long-lasting effects and cause irreparable damage. Not only does this lead to serious legal implications, but a data security breach often causes a major damage to your brand reputation and significantly affects consumer trust. Examples of security breaches include successful hacker attacks and malware attacks – that companies need to be constantly mindful of.
A regulatory crisis occurs when major changes are made to regulations, policies and laws that govern how your business operate. During such a crisis, your business should be able to respond to the changing rules and policies, while keeping your customers informed and maintaining a continuous line of communication.
How Can Digital Marketing Help During a Crisis?
The most important thing to do during a crisis situation is to address it swiftly and effectively. By ignoring a crisis or not giving a proper response to address one, you risk the creation of even greater problems. Denial of the crisis will only make the situation spread beyond the ability of your control and eventually make it unmanageable. As such, it is important that companies take measures to acknowledge the problem directly and discuss the measures that will be taken to rectify the issue. Below are a few ways in which digital marketing can be utilised to help address such an issue.
Address the crisis in your content marketing
Turning a blind eye to an ongoing crisis on public platforms is a definite no-no and content marketing is one of the most powerful tools that you can use during a crisis. By strategically conveying your message via blogging, email marketing and social media, you are able to address the issue and provide your customers the assurance they need.
Use social listening tools
Social listening tools are essential to helping you assess the damage caused by the crisis and helping you plan your next few steps. By investing in good social listening tools, companies are able to receive alerts related to activity on specific topics, letting you know what the general public sentiment is, its volume and how customer perception is changing. Most social monitoring software have the ability to show whether conversations around your brand are positive or negative and can even be used to provide early warning signs regarding a crisis that is about to develop.
Respond to problems on social media
During a crisis, be prepared for large volumes of negative feedback on social media. It is important to reach out to customers who have complaints and respond to them publicly, so that both the customer and other users are able to see that you are attending to the issue. However, once the initial response has been given, make sure to take the conversation offline as soon as possible and steer the customer towards your customer service department. It might also be worthwhile to have a FAQ section ready, mentioning the summary of the situation as well as a list of common customer queries together with well-planned out answers.
Keep an eye on your reviews
You are also likely to receive heaps of negative reviews during a crisis. It is important not to neglect monitoring this as they could provide you valuable insights that you need to take into consideration when addressing the problem. Negative reviews have the ability to cause reputation risks, drops in conversations as well as lowered search rankings for your brand, which is why it is important to attend to them.
