Now that the dust is settling on the SVB bank failure, it’s a good time to take stock of our own crisis preparedness planning. A recent survey by software marketplace vendor Capterra reveals that only 49% of U.S. businesses have a formal crisis plan, with another 28% reporting they have an “informal” crisis plan. Yet 98% of business leaders report that when they had to activate their crisis plan, it was effective.
This brings us to Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), already dubbed the first Twitter created bank run. First key fact for crisis analysis: SVB reportedly didn’t have a communications professional on the senior leadership team.
Articles in Axios and Commpro disect the bank’s poor communication with its shareholders and customers. As one tweet by Lulu Cheng Meservery, EVP of corporate affairs at Activision Blizzard, asked and answered: “Can good comms save an otherwise bad situation? No, there’s no amount of ‘going direct’ that can make up for a bank not having enough money. But bad comms can kill an otherwise salvageable situation.”
Meservery also commented: “SVB’s core customers…don’t get their news from press releases or the SEC…They’re around digital water coolers. They get scuttlebutt from group chats, Twitter, HN, Reddit, tech pubs, direct channels, and VCs.”
The constant wakeup call from the Capterra survey and SVB:
- If you don’t have a crisis plan, create one.
- If it’s an “informal” plan, make it more structured. List scenarios and creating checklists and team assignments. You never want to “wing it” in the middle of a crisis.
- Communications needs to be at the table providing inputs along with legal, regulatory, operations, HR and other key stakeholders.
- Listen to the variety of channels that customers, stakeholders, investors are on so you can spot an issue before it occurs…and if there is a crisis, make sure these channels are used for outbound communications.
- Write templates so you can be faster on the response when the Twitter world has already framed the narrative.
- Conduct drills on your plan and discuss the most recent crises that impact your industry.