All stakeholders must be engaged to effectively protect the reputation of an industry. An industry association representing about 50 Italian and multination businesses trusted us to design and deliver a crisis training program for frontline personnel. Main goal was to check if and how far the contact centers of their members were prepared to detect a possible crisis and activate related procedures. We used mystery auditing techniques and simulated a press inquiry about a highly controversial topic, chasing member companies. We tracked and analyzed all responses, set interviews, and measured the consistency of messages with the association’s guidelines. The program included a plenary session to share results, discuss vulnerability and risk areas and agree some mitigation actions.

Our results?

• 34 companies were engaged, we defined a specific path for each of them (preliminary contact via e-mail or phone, follow up, escalation)
• 7 interviews recorded in one week
• The association assessed the responsiveness of its members when facing possible crisis
• During the plenary session attendees were given the opportunity to recall crisis communication guidelines and key messages on industry hot topics