Alright founders, fasten your seatbelts. We’re about to dive into the wild west of crisis communication in a world where crises pop up more often than new dog-themed tokens.
These lessons will apply to any industry you’re in, but being crypto, you’re going to have to deal with crises a lot more than in other places–unfortunately. That’s just the nature of where we work.
So, how do you handle these situations without looking like a deer caught in the headlights?
Let’s dive in.
Do Your Own Research
When a crisis hits, the first you want to do is stay calm, collected, and do your own research.
On the surface, it looks like shit hit the fan, but did it actually? First you want to dive into Google’s search results, media outlets, Crypto Twitter, podcasts, Telegram, Discord, and see if there’s an actual conversation that involves you or not.
If there’s three degens on Twitter that made a couple of memes about it, then maybe you’re best off laying low until customer support starts ringing you that there’s a proverbial angry mob at the door.
Until then, keep your calm, assess the situation, and move on from there.
For the sake of portraying a developing crisis comms situation, we’ll put aside the ‘laying low’ scenario.
Be a Human
Do you remember when Zuckerberg tried to explain how Facebook works to Congress?
Let’s avoid that.
When a crisis hits, and your customers are panicking–as might be some of your employees–people want calm and collected voices. In today’s world, we’re sick of algorithms, chat bots, and robotic responses.
People want to hear from other people, it’s that simple.
Speed is Your Friend (Unlike That Shitcoin You FOMO’d Into)
News travels fast, but in crypto it travels even faster.
Don’t wait for the perfect response. Even though a quick, honest “We’re aware of the situation and working on it” is better than radio silence. People hate radio silence.
Because remember, in the minutes it took you to write up the perfect response, Twitter trolls will have already created 200 memes about your situation, and each is creating 200 more as you read. That FUD snowball is growing fast.
That’s just how the internet works.
Own Up, Don’t Cover Up
The sweet whisper of a company owning up to their mistake is so hard to find nowadays, and yet so refreshing.
Did your exchange just get hacked? Did your unstoppable blockchain just go down? Did your database just get leaked? Well, just own up to it and fix the mistake.
Aside from silence, there’s nothing worse than not acknowledging the blame. But remember, it’s not just about acknowledging the blame, it’s also got to do with being human about it.
Remember the Crowdstrike meltdown that severely impacted airlines, hospitals, payment rails, and more?
Well here’s the original CEO comment:
Here’s a quick rewrite:
“I’m the CEO of CrowdStrike, that company that pretty much put a pause on the world today. I’m devastated to see how far today’s outage went, and I will be personally working with my team until it’s fully fixed for every single user.
That would mean nothing without saying sorry, however. People around the world rely on us, and although these things happen, I promise I will work around the clock so it doesn’t happen again.
Ultimately, this is my responsibility.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what we know:
[brief summary].
I will be working 24/7 to get everything back and running as soon as possible, and my team will be joining me as much as they can (they need to rest too!).
We’ll be sharing updates as often as possible, which you can find here [link].
If you need to contact us, the quickest way is to go here [link].”
See? Honest, direct, and with just enough self-deprecation to show you’re human.
The Second Attempt
CrowdStrike took the blame like a boss. The president physically accepted the “most epic fail” award at DefCon, a popular hacking conference, watch:
CrowdStrike accepting the @PwnieAwards for “most epic fail” at @defcon. Class act. pic.twitter.com/e7IgYosHAE
— Dominic White 👾 (@singe) August 10, 2024
Don’t Promise the Moon (We’ve All Had Enough of Those)
When you’re knee-deep in a crisis, it’s tempting to make grand promises.
“Send us your wallet and we will repay everyone in full, this will never happen again.” Umm, okay. First nobody is going to believe that, and if someone did, you’re in another pickle.
Pro-tip: under promise and over deliver.
Keep the Updates Coming Like They’re Yield Farming Rewards
Once you’ve acknowledged the issue, explained what happened (as a human) and took responsibility, just keep the updates going.
These are not the times to worry about flooding a timeline. In fact, these are times to become a landslide of information and let everyone know of every minute detail that’s going on.
Caveat: quality matters. “Update: still working on it” will not help. Say the actual update.
Learn from It, or Prepare to Repeat It
Every crisis is an opportunity.
Use this as a chance to show your community what you’re made of. Transparency, quick action, and a touch of humility can turn an angry mob into loyal supporters faster than you can say “Bitcoin pizza day.”
And on the inside, once the dust settles, do a post-mortem. What went wrong? How can you prevent it? What did you learn?
Share these insights with your community. It’s like showing your work in a math problem – it might not change the result, but it shows you know what you’re doing.
The Bottom Line
Navigating a crisis in the crypto world is like trying to pilot a rocket ship through an asteroid field while explaining quantum physics to a golden retriever.
It’s tough, it’s chaotic, but it’s not impossible.
Handle your crisis right, and you might just come out the other side stronger, wiser, and with a community more loyal than Bitcoin maximalists. Mess it up, and well… There’s always another blockchain project looking for talented people.
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