Crisis Planning Agency
Most organizations do not fail a crisis because they lacked good people. They fail because nobody agreed in advance who speaks, what gets said, and how fast.
Experiencing a crisis right now? Call our 24/7 hotline: 920-358-3188
What is a crisis communication plan?
A crisis communication plan is a documented framework that defines who speaks for your organization during a high-stakes event, what they say, which audiences hear from you in what order, and through which channels. It assigns named roles, provides pre-approved holding statements, and sets escalation thresholds, so your team executes a decision made in calm conditions rather than improvising under scrutiny.
Most organizations are not ready
Forrester’s 2025 B2B Brand and Communications Survey found that 77% of large companies have a documented crisis communications plan, compared with just 49% of smaller organizations. Only 39% of large firms and 23% of smaller ones ever rehearse it.
That last figure matters most. An unrehearsed plan tends to collapse the first time it meets real conditions. The failure points are consistent: no pre-approved messaging, no clear owner, and no external counsel at the moment it is needed.
What your plan contains
Risk and vulnerability assessment. What can realistically go wrong, scored by likelihood and reputational consequence.
Activation triggers. Clear thresholds separating a complaint from an issue from a full crisis.
A named crisis team. Decision authority, spokesperson, internal lead, monitoring, legal liaison. Names and mobile numbers, not job titles.
Stakeholder sequencing. Who hears from you, in what order. Employees before press is not a courtesy. It is what stops your staff learning about their employer from a reporter.
Pre-approved holding statements. Legally reviewed language for your likeliest scenarios, ready to deploy in minutes.
Channel and media protocol. Who publishes, who talks to press, who never does, and what happens when a reporter calls someone outside the plan. Paired with media training.
Monitoring and escalation. How you detect it and what triggers the next tier. Supported by media monitoring and reputation management.
Post-incident review. The debrief most organizations skip, and where the next version of the plan comes from.
How we build it
Weeks 1 to 2. We interview leadership, communications, HR, IT, and operations, review past incidents, and assess how you currently appear in search and media.
Weeks 3 to 5. We draft the framework, legal reviews it, you review it, and we revise until it reflects how your organization actually makes decisions.
Week 6. A tabletop simulation using a scenario from your own risk register. This is where the gap between the document and reality shows up.
Ongoing. The plan arrives in a format people can use under pressure, not a binder nobody opens. Review annually and after any leadership change, acquisition, or near-miss. Clients on a crisis retainer get it maintained continuously.
Crisis planning when AI answers the questions
When something goes wrong, many of your stakeholders will not open a news site. They will ask an AI assistant what happened at your company and get an answer assembled from whatever that system finds authoritative, often before your first statement is indexed.
You cannot control that output mid-crisis. You can influence what it draws on beforehand: accurate entity data, current and authoritative pages on your own domain, and consistent facts across the sources these systems trust. That is the same work behind AI search visibility, and it matters far more when the query is adversarial. We build it into the plan, along with a response path for synthetic media. Most agencies do neither.
Why organizations bring us in
We have guided leadership teams through live incidents for decades, including the many that quietly never made the news. We know how a story gets built and which choices in the first hour set the framing for everything after.
We treat press, employees, search results, and AI-generated answers as one reputation rather than five workstreams, connecting to your public relations and issues management work. Our crisis experience spans healthcare, manufacturing, government, transit, education, and nonprofits, sectors where an incident carries regulatory exposure or public accountability.
Based in Appleton, working nationally.
FAQs
Crisis Planning
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a crisis communication plan and a crisis management plan?
A crisis management plan governs the operational response: containment, continuity, logistics, and resourcing. A crisis communication plan governs what is said, by whom, to which audiences, and when. Most organizations need both, built to work together.
How does crisis planning differ from risk management?
Risk management identifies threats and reduces exposure before they materialize. Crisis planning equips you to respond when something happens anyway. Risk management asks what could go wrong. Crisis planning asks what you do at 6am when it already has.
What should a crisis communication plan include?
A risk assessment, activation triggers, a named crisis team with backups, stakeholder sequencing, pre-approved holding statements, channel and media protocols, monitoring and escalation procedures, and a post-incident review framework.
How long does it take to build one?
Roughly six weeks for most mid-sized organizations, including a tabletop simulation. If you are facing an immediate threat, we can develop interim protocols in days while the full plan is built in parallel.
Can we just use a crisis communication plan template?
A template is a reasonable way to understand structure, but it is not a plan. It cannot assess your vulnerabilities, secure legal review of your statements, assign accountability your leadership has accepted, or rehearse your spokesperson.
How often should we update our plan?
Annually at minimum, and immediately after any leadership change, merger or acquisition, significant operational change, or near-miss. Only a third of smaller organizations update annually, which is why so many plans still list people who left years ago.
How quickly can Red Shoes respond to a live crisis?
Immediately. Our team is available 24/7 and can mobilize within minutes of your call. Clients on a crisis retainer get priority access to a team that already knows their business, so there is no ramp-up time.
Facing a crisis right now? Call our 24/7 hotline at 920-358-3188. Planning ahead? Let’s talk about building your plan.
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Ready before you need to be.
Facing a crisis now? Call 920-358-3188. Planning ahead? Let’s talk.
