Emergency could just happen next second: be prepared and alert!

The first day I join the PR-branding and development dept., my manager Yi gave a short brief of my daily job and told me never shut down phone and keep in contact. I didn’t really alert.  

It was Sunday morning; I was on the way to church.  I received a call from Yi, saying that a girl just committed suicide in one of our hotel branch in Hunan Province. She asked me to chill and just focus on one thing – monitoring media, from all sources! “If there is anything being report, even a single sentence, you have to record down whatever you find, and keep updating on our PR private chat group. Do not publish anything on our social media platform without my authority because the issue is now under police’s investigation.” She hung up, following by a message given me the details of the issue.

To be honest I was nervous because I don’t know what will happen the next second. And so of course I drive home and search for media reports from online media, TV, and social media keywords for a whole day.

Via the chat group I know that every one of us have our own roles. 

One colleague is standing by all the time to educate the hotel branch manager how to handle media. As it is located at another province and our PR people from headquarter are not able to present in front of journalists and cameras right away. 

Another colleague is to prepare several official written announcements, just in case the issue became crisis and we have to response immediately. 

One colleague is to deal with IT department and make sure booking channel is shut down so that no more guests will come to hotel before police release the block. 

And one colleague is to make internal report to all the employees who are working for this hotel brand. This is to make sure that they are informed and alerted so that they will not trust any rumours from the public. 

Manager Yi is the one in charge of managing every link and decides what to do next.

Two days later, the girl was found not a guest of our hotel. She failed her job interview and then went to one of our hotel branch to find her friend, but in the end she cannot make herself out of the blue, she jumped out from the building and ended her life.

It took about 10 days and finally the discussion on social media cool down and faded from the public. By the effort that our team done, our hotel brand did not involve in the hot discussion. WOW! I was so proud that I was part of the team. And I believe we managed it calmly and pro were because there is a mature emergency handling plan and the people and time were well organized.

After we summarized the whole case into document form and put it in cabinet, I asked manager Yi, can you tell me how you can organize it so well. She said, as a PR person in a leading hotel company that have 3000 hotel branches around the world, emergency happen almost every day. You have to be prepared and alert! Just make sure your heart is in good condition and enjoy your PR challenges! "


Enjoy your PR day! 
Claudia Xinyin Xie