Things can go wrong – it’s a fact of life, and it applies to business situations just as much as to our personal lives. You can’t plan for all eventualities and sometimes a crisis will occur, however well prepared you are. How you handle a crisis, however, can make the difference between whether your business weathers the storm or signals the beginning of the end.

As specialists in crisis communications, we’ve seen our fair share of tricky situations for businesses over the years and whatever the catalyst, the same rules apply. The outcome always depends on how you respond to the situation.

We’ve put together the top three mistakes we see businesses make when faced with a crisis, and more importantly, we outline how to avoid making them:

1. Silence is far from golden

There’s often a temptation to say nothing and hope everything will blow over, or to say as little as possible in a bid to tick a box and move on. Even worse is the dreaded “no comment” response.

This is never the way to go if you want your business to come out the other side unscathed. Regardless of the issue at hand, by saying nothing at all, you allow outsiders to fill in their own narrative.

If you stay silent what does that tell your customers or stakeholders or those impacted by the situation? They’re likely to assume that you don’t care or that something is being covered up. They may apportion blame where there may not be any and make assumptions about the situation that could result in something which could be easily resolved, snowballing into a major crisis.

The solution? Always make a comment, even if it’s a holding statement to show that you’re aware and are investigating.

2. One size doesn’t fit all

We see many businesses who think they’re more than prepared to deal with a crisis fall foul of this one. You’ve held the workshops, you’ve got the process in place, and you’ve got all the template statements on file, and yet something still doesn’t quite work in your favour.

That’s because crisis situations don’t fit a template, it’s great to be prepared and be ready to respond quickly but it’s essential to remember that every crisis is unique. When faced with a crisis, a copy and paste response will have your business coming off as uncaring and formulaic.

It’s essential to tailor your response precisely to the specific situation you’re handling; think about the audience and the people that are affected by the crisis and put them first, every time.

3. Not knowing when to say sorry, and how to do it properly

It’s a common misconception that you should never apologise in a crisis situation as it assumes blame where there may be none. That’s far from the truth. It’s perfectly acceptable to apologise to those affected without holding your hands up and accepting blame. In fact, if you don’t, you’re likely to come across as lacking in empathy. What your audience will take from that is that you don’t really care.

Likewise, apologising in the wrong way can only escalate the crisis, for example: “we’re sorry if you were offended by this” suggests the issue lies with those affected by the situation.

It’s perfectly acceptable to apologise for the impact a situation has had on a stakeholder without apologising for the cause or the action. This enables a business to validate the feelings and experiences of those stakeholders without using language that admits the company has done wrong or implying fault elsewhere. This will demonstrate that you care about what has happened and those impacted by it and that your business will investigate properly.

Ultimately, we know that preparation and agility are key to avoiding these pitfalls and many more alongside these. If you’re prepared for a crisis, you’re far less likely to make the wrong decisions when you’re on the back foot. Being crisis ready might seem something only big corporations need to think about, but often it’s SMEs that suffer most in an unexpected or mishandled crisis.