Chapter 31: Public Relations For Your Restaurant
WHAT IS PUBLIC RELATIONS?
Public relations is the sum of its many definitions. It is a planned effort to build positive opinions about your business through actions and communications. Good PR sends a positive message to the public about your establishment.
PR should be part of your overall marketing communications program. It includes advertising, internal communications, sales promotion, speeches, contests, promotions, and personal appearances. It is who the public thinks you are and the nurturing of that opinion in a positive way.
WHAT PR DOES (AND DOES NOT DO) FOR YOU
The key to implementing an effective PR campaign is determining your business’s image; what you want it to be and how best you can create that image in the eyes of the public. You need to clearly define your objectives and create a plan that will implement them. PR is not a way to gloss over a tarnished image or to keep the press at a safe distance; it is an organized and ongoing campaign to accentuate the positives of who you truly are.
THE MARRIAGE OF PR AND MARKETING
Public relations is one of marketing’s tools. As a result, most restaurants keep these two departments close together. On a practical level, this close relationship obtains and retains customers, which is the obvious goal of any marketing plan. When management is communicating effectively with guests, employees, and community leaders, it is implementing an effective marketing plan.
HOW TO APPLY YOUR PR PLAN
Once you have established the objectives of your PR campaign and integrated them into your marketing plan, it is time to execute. These questions can help you do just that:
• What is the right medium for this strategy?
• Who are the key contacts?
• Is this plan thorough? Have you considered all the downside risks?
• Are you prepared to deliver a package to the media? This delivery package is an essential part of your plan. It contains descriptions, plots, contacts, phone numbers— all the pertinent information that will inform the media and direct them to you. The press may not use one word of your materials, but there is a greater likelihood they will describe you the way you want if you have given them the resources to do just that.
The following is a list of practical factors that will help you gain recognition:
• Be honest. The media wants credible, honest material and relationships. Your message should be genuine and factual. You do not have to reveal confidential data; it just means that your materials should be thorough and truthful.
• Respond. Do not lie, dodge, or cover up. If you do not have every answer to a question, do not say “no comment” or “that information is unavailable.” Simply respond that you do not have that information, but will provide it as soon as humanly possible, and do so.
• Give the facts and follow up. If you supply the media with a printed handout of key facts, it lessens the chances of your getting misquoted. Make a concentrated effort to follow up and go over information with the media.
• Be concise. The media will burn you for what you say, not what you do not. Be deliberate about providing the facts without editorializing, exaggerating, or pulling things out of thin air.
• Nurture relationships. If you follow the above steps you are on your way to building a strong, lasting relationship with the press. These relationships can sour instantly if you are reactionary, hostile, aloof, hypersensitive, or argumentative in any way. No matter what you think of an interviewer, treat her with respect, courtesy, and professionalism. Causing negative reactions from the press will deny you print space and airtime. How you interact with the press is crucial, but it is only half the process. The content of your communications to them is the other side of press relations. The following list will help you identify your purpose and communicate it effectively to the press:
• Identify your purpose. Why do you want public exposure? What are you specifically trying to draw attention to? Are you selling your hotel’s new lobby renovation? Then do not go on about its famous rose garden. Be sure you are conveying your purpose.
• Identify your target. Who are you targeting? Prospective customers? Your employees? The local business community? Civic leaders? Lay out whom you want to reach and then determine who in the media will speak to them most effectively.
• Think as they are thinking. Why would it be interesting to the media? Figure out how your interests can be packaged in a way that directly matches the interests of the press. Make your story one they want to print — i.e., one that will help them sell papers and gain listeners.
• Customize your materials. Once you have identified your purpose, who your target is, and the media’s angle, tailor your materials to include all three. Give the press everything they need to tell the story — photos, copy — and be sure it is in the style and mediums they are using.
• Know where to send your materials. Is your story a news story or a feature story? Do you know the difference? A news story goes to a newspaper’s city desk. Feature stories go to the appropriate editor: travel, lifestyle, etc. It is a very good idea to cultivate relationships with these editors beforehand so that when the time arises, they are thinking well of you and will want to help.
• Make their job easy. Do not ask the media for the ground rules for getting press and building relationships — learn these on your own and then meet them. Do as much of their work for them as possible: Give them something that is ready to go, that answers all their questions and is interesting. Be available immediately to answer questions.
BUILDING AND SUPPORTING STRONG MEDIA RELATIONS
Media relations are one of the most important aspects of PR because effective media relations generate publicity. Effective media relations open the channels for your public to receive the messages you want them to receive. Media relations are how you build your relationships with the press and determine how they respond when you want them to report on a story.
The first goal in building strong media relations is to determine who your target media is. News media are classified by the audiences they reach and the means they use to carry their messages. Your target media will change according to the type of message you wish to send and the type of audience you wish to reach. Your advertising agency can supply you with contact information for the newspapers, radio, and television stations in your area. In addition, you may want to target national media, as well as specialized trade and business publications. Hire a part-time PR consultant, a former reporter, or editor who can help you present your materials to the press. The following is a list of essentials for building a good relationship with the press:
• Fact Sheet — One of the most helpful items of media information, the fact sheet does most of the reporter’s research for her. It also shortens the length of interviews by answering questions in advance. It should describe your property and what you are promoting. At a glance it tells where you are located, when you opened, your architectural style, capacity, and number of employees. It should also specify the types of facilities you have and the menu.
• Staff Biographies — You will need to write biographies for all of your key executives that include work experience, education, professional memberships, honors, and awards.
• Good Photography — Do not take chances with an amateur photographer. Space is limited in the print media and editors go through thousands of photographs to choose just a few. Do not give them reason to ignore your pictures; hire a pro. Ask for references and check them thoroughly. When the photos are done, write an explanatory caption for each picture in your collection. Doing so gives editors an easy understanding of what they are looking at. Before sending photos to the media, find out whether they prefer black and white, slides, or transparencies and send them in the desired format.
• Press Kit Folder — Put all of these materials into a single folder with your property’s name and logo on the cover. Include brochures, rate cards, package flyers, and a brief on your involvement with local charities. Do not over stuff, but give the press a solid idea of what distinguishes you from the competition.
Before beginning your media campaign, invite the media — one at a time — to have a brief tour of your establishment and, perhaps, lunch. These relationship builders are not the time to sell them on doing a story. If the reporters trust you, they will help you and vice versa. They need article ideas as much as you need press.
Once you have built this relationship, you can begin your media campaign. Your relationship with the reporter will not get a boring story to press. Your story needs to be newsworthy on its own. Perhaps a reporter, who gets a story from an interview or news conference at your establishment, may mention your place in her story — free advertising that comes from developing strong relationships with the media and learning to think in their terms.
Many businesses go one step further and give the media contacts that are written in journalistic style. A news release describes the newsworthy development in your restaurant in a ready-to-print article. Editors can then change it or print it as is. These can be valuable for getting your message out there.
If writing journalistic articles is beyond your reach or budget, tip sheets can be very effective in getting your story across. A tip sheet gets the message to the media by outlining the who, what, when, where, why, and how of your story. It is an outline of the story the reporter will then write. Tip sheets give the spine of the story and, because they are so concise, often get more attention from busy editors.
Here are a few more tips on how to work effectively with the media:
• Earn a reputation for dealing with the facts and nothing else.
• Never ask to review a reporter’s article before publication.
• Never ask after a visit or an interview if an article will appear.
• Follow up by phone to see if your fact sheet or press release has arrived, if the reporter is interested and if she needs anything else.
• Provide requested information — photos, plans, etc. — ASAP.
WHAT’S NEWS
Once you have identified your target media and begun your media relations program, you need to learn what makes news. Pick up the paper or turn on the TV; the media are looking for the strange, volatile, controversial, and unusual. It is not newsworthy that you run a nice restaurant that provides great food at a reasonable price. It is newsworthy when a customer gets food poisoning at your restaurant or when a group’s convention reservations are cancelled. This news is not the type you want to make. Obviously, you want to be making great news. Take steps to avoid negative articles: making sure your reservations system works and your staff treats guests courteously.
Once you have taken these steps, you are ready to generate positive stories in the media. Here is a list of basic newsworthiness criteria:
• Is it local?
• Is it timely?
• Is it unique, unusual, strange?
• Does it involve and affect people?
• Will it provoke human emotion?
Think in terms of what sets your establishment apart from the competition and what is newsworthy about those qualities. When you have a story, be smart about who will be interested in writing about it and whose audience would love to read about it. Here is a short list of possibly newsworthy ideas:
• A new manager or chef.
• Visits by well-known politicians, entertainers, authors, or local heroes.
• Private parties, conventions, or meetings of unique organizations: antique car enthusiasts, baseball card collectors, scientific organizations.
• A new menu.
• Hosting a charitable event.
• Reduced rates, special menus, promotions, weekend specials.
• Personal stories about the staff: the waiter who returned a doctor’s medical bag, helped a patron stop choking, returned a tip that was too big.
PR IS DIFFERENT FROM ADVERTISING
PR is not advertising; PR uses advertising as one of its tools. A good PR campaign is coordinated with advertising, but PR is not paid-for time and space. In advertising, clients pay the media to carry a message and the client has complete control over this message. With PR, the media receives no money. Your story about the medical dinner meeting with a noted speaker at your restaurant may end up on the five o’clock news, in the paper, or nowhere at all. The success of a PR story often depends on how timely it is or whether a newspaper editor feels it is worth reporting on. Furthermore, only a portion of your intended message may be used. The media may not even use your restaurant’s name. Because they are choosing to write about your topic, the story could end up in a very different form than you initially presented or hoped.
With PR you have none of the control that you do with advertising in terms of the message being delivered. When done well, PR garners positive attention for your establishment, is hugely cost-effective, and is more credible than advertising. The public is getting its information from a third party — not directly from a business. Customers assume advertising to be self-serving, but a positive message delivered by a third party is authentic and trustworthy. Therefore, third-party messages are infinitely more persuasive than advertising. Also, the value of securing unpaid media space through PR is immeasurable.
LAUNCHING A CAMPAIGN
In a small restaurant the manager may be responsible for public relations. In a larger establishment the director of marketing or sales often plays this role. Regardless of who gets the job, the PR-buck stops with the general manager. Whoever takes on your PR function will be your liaison with the media. Having one person designated as media liaison makes it simple for the press to get their questions answered and makes it much easier for you to control the flow of information to them. This back-and-forth is a critical element in your PR campaign. Once this liaison is determined, notify your staff. Advise them not to talk with the press, but to refer all media inquiries to the liaison.
Remember when launching your campaign that you will be competing with professionals for a very limited amount of airtime and/or editorial space. Therefore, reading newspapers and trying to determine which pieces were inspired by PR people — and what about them made editors choose them — is a good discipline. Also, many colleges offer courses in public relations. The greater your knowledge, the more effective your campaign will be.
If your establishment is part of a chain, PR assistance may be available from the headquarters. If you manage an independent property, PR help may be available from your local Chamber of Commerce or Convention/Visitors’ Bureau.
When contacting the media it is important to determine who will be the most useful to you. What type of customer are you seeking to attract? What is the size of your market area? Are you contacting the media who cater to those demographics? Your advertising agency can be helpful with statistical data and the interpretation of it.
Once you know who your target is, you begin building media lists. These include names of appropriate editors, reporters, news directors, assignment editors, media outlets, addresses, and contact numbers. From this list you contact and visit the media who are crucial to your campaign. If you want to mail fact sheets, press releases, or press kits, you can hire a company that sells media mailing lists and you can pay them or another firm to do your mailing for you. If that is beyond your budget, calling the editorial department of a newspaper or a newsroom will get you the contact numbers of the people you seek to reach and you can put your mailing together yourself. During your campaign, it is also important that you search for allies. Allies are businesses and organizations that have similar goals to yours. Your state’s Tourism/Travel Promotion Office can be a great resource. This office is working year-round to bring business and leisure guests to your state. These, of course, are your prospective customers. Your state’s travel promotion officials will be happy to give you advice on how to tie in with their advertising, PR, and other promotional programs.
Most states also have a Business/Economic Development Department that will be happy to help you, since their goal is to create new business in your state. Their mailing list will keep you informed of planned promotions. When meeting with state officials it is a good idea to volunteer to assist their promotional and PR programs. Doing so gets you “in the loop” and ahead of your competition because you will know about the programs your state is developing. Hotel and restaurant associations can also prove to be valuable allies, since they have PR people on staff or use national PR agencies.
There are a number of national travel industry organizations that work privately to generate travel in the United States. They are natural allies. Locally, your Chamber of Commerce may organize familiarization (fam) trips to your area. These are trips for travel writers and travel agents that showcase the attributes of your area. Let the organization arranging the “fam” trip know that you are willing to offer free accommodations or meals to the visiting journalists and travel agents. If you are selected, make sure time is allotted for a guided tour of your property, led by your most knowledgeable manager or salesperson. Present each guest with a press kit. Also mail press kits to the agents after the tour, since most of them prefer to travel light but accumulate tons of literature and souvenirs on their trips. Making a good impression with travel agents and writers is great for you because their third-party endorsement is the best kind of advertising.
When these agents and writers do visit, make sure that your establishment is in tip-top shape. Your visitors will probably be visiting numerous other hotels and restaurants and you want to stand out in every (positive) way. Only the most memorable hotels and restaurants will be on their “recommended” list and you want to be one of them.
Suppliers can also be a huge ally because the more business you do, the more orders you send them for their products or services. Airlines, tourist attractions, liquor distributors, wholesalers can all be allies. They often offer attractive packages of lower room rates, food costs, car rentals. Prices are usually deeply discounted to draw customers who would otherwise not use one of the packaged services. These packages are a great promotion and often garner notice from travel publications and consumer sections of newspapers eager to report a great deal. Also, airlines, car rental companies, and cruise lines have PR departments that can help design and implement your PR program.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Special events can be very effective in generating publicity and community interest. You may be opening a new property or celebrating a renovation or an anniversary. Any such occasions are opportunities to plan a special event that will support or improve your PR program. There are usually two kinds of special events: one-time and ongoing. Obviously you are not going to have a groundbreaking ceremony annually, but you might have a famous Fourth of July party every year.
The key question to ask when designing a special event is “why?” Clearly defining your objectives before you start is crucial. Is your goal to improve community opinion of your business? To present yourself as a good employer? To show off a renovation? Once these needs have been clearly defined, a timetable and schedule of events can be made. Ample time is necessary, since contractors, inspection agencies, and civil officials may be involved. If you are planning an anniversary celebration, research what events were going on in your community when you opened: Was there a huge fire? Had the civil war just ended? Did Dwight Eisenhower speak at the local college? Once you have this information, send it to the press. They will see your event as part of the historical landscape — as opposed to a commercial endeavor that benefits only you — and they will appreciate your community focus.
Special events require preparation to ensure everything is ready when the spotlight is turned on. Be certain the day you have chosen does not conflict with another, competing, event or fall on an inappropriate holiday. With a groundbreaking or opening of a new property, you should invite the developer, architect, interior designer, civic officials, and the media. You should prepare brief remarks and ask the architect to comment on the property. In your remarks, remind your listeners that the addition of your business does not boost school taxes or increase the need for police and fire protection; it adds new jobs and new tax revenues. If you are celebrating an opening, tours of the property are a must and should be led by your most personable employees. Refreshments should be served and, in many cases, lunch or dinner is provided. Whatever your occasion, you should provide press kits to the attending media and mail them to all media that were invited. Souvenirs are a good idea — they can be simple or elaborate, but should always be creative, fun, and useful to your guests.
THE VALUE OF LOYALTY
Obviously how you relate to your guests affects their opinion of you. That opinion then translates into potential loyalty and loyalty boosts your bottom line. In fact, a 5 percent improvement in customer retention translates into a 15 to 50 percent boost in profits.
Those are serious numbers. In common terms, that simply means getting your regular customers to return one more time per month. Furthermore, it costs about five times as much to attract a new customer as it does to retain an existing one. This is another huge benefit of loyalty to your bottom line and it comes through the overall commitment your establishment makes to its repeat customers. Focusing on your repeat customers — your most profitable clients — allows you to keep them coming back. Two things to focus on for retaining clients:
1. Pay attention to your most profitable clients. Listen. Keep in touch. Find out what they want and need and why they have chosen you.
2. If they go to the competition, find out why.
Brief, succinct comment cards where guests rate your service, facilities, etc., can be a great way to find out what they think of you. You can offer discounts or promotional items for the return of these cards. If you do use a comment card, the one question that must be there is, “Would you return to have dinner with us again?” If you get “no’s,” take immediate action to determine why and then fix the situation.
If your restaurant is located in a hotel, there are infinite ways for you to make your guests’ stay more enjoyable and to show you appreciate them. Pamphlets describing local attractions in your community help guests plan their activities (and may entice them to extend their stay). First-aid kits, warm towels, water bottles with your logo on them — anything that makes things more convenient and enjoyable — will distinguish you from the competition. On a larger scale, whenever possible, provide upgrades; let customers know you appreciate them, inform them of services that may be useful to them, and go above and beyond what they expect from you. By doing this, you not only increase the chances of their returning, you increase the chances of them telling their friends about how well they were treated. This will bring in new and, if treated well, soon-to-be-loyal customers.
Many hotels and restaurants have established frequent-stay/diner plans that are similar to airline frequent-flyer plans. Customers accrue “points” or “dollars” towards food, merchandise, upgrades, or free rooms. Many hotels even have tie-ins with airlines that allow guests to earn frequent-flyer miles through their stay. These are great customer loyalty plans but are out of reach for many smaller operations. There are, however, many things smaller organizations can do to build loyalty. Here are a few:
• Build a database (or at least a mailing list) of your customers.
• Track purchases and behavior: food preferences, table preferences, entertainment needs, and special needs.
• Constantly update your information based on interactions with your customers.
• Recognize birthdays, anniversaries, and special occasions.
• Show your appreciation through holiday greetings, special discounts, and other forms of recognition.
• Thank your customers for their business.
• Whenever you can, individualize your communications.
• Listen to and act on customer suggestions.
• Inform guests on new or improved services.
• Tell guests of potential inconveniences, like renovations, and stress their future benefits.
• Answer every inquiry, including complaints.
• Accommodate all reasonable requests for meal substitutions, table changes, etc.
• Empower employees to solve problems.
• Talk to your customers and employees so you can let them know you are listening and find out what is going on.
This last point — the back and forth between guests and employees and you — is enormously important. Just as you need to focus on getting your message to your guests, you also need to focus on getting their messages to you. If they think their opinions are important to you, they will think they are important to you — and they will come back. People have more choices than ever about where to spend their money. If they know their individual needs will be met and that they will be taken care of, their choice will be to spend it with you.
EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IS ALSO PUBLIC RELATIONS
You cannot succeed in the hospitality industry if your employees do not deliver excellent service. They have the most daily contact with your customers and are therefore responsible for the opinion — positive or negative — people have of your establishment. Therefore, one of the most important “publics” that your public relations program should focus on is your staff.
Customers want to be taken care of and they judge a business as much on the quality of the service as the product. Basically, if a member of your wait staff is grumpy or tired, that is bad PR. Therefore; employee relations should be a main focus of your PR campaign. In order to do this you must have a well-trained staff that understands the technical ins and outs of their jobs and also believes in your organization’s mission. Your employees need to know the high level of service your customers expect and they need to be empowered to deliver it. A staff that does this on an ongoing basis is one that generates repeat business through word-of-mouth referrals. And that is good PR.
Keeping your employees informed is a key way of making them feel involved and building positive feelings between staff and management. The following is a list of things to communicate to your staff:
1. How your business is doing and what you are planning.
2. How the competition is doing and what you are planning.
3. What community issues you are concerned about and taking a role in.
4. Recent personnel changes.
5. Who is booked in the future: private parties, conventions, social events, etc.
6. Available training and job openings.
7. Staff weddings, birthdays, significant accomplishments, or happenings.
Communicating this information gives employees the sense that you care and creates a unified work atmosphere where great service becomes a group responsibility. It also shows that you recognize the difference they make to your bottom line and that you are paying attention to them.
Opening the lines of communication between management and staff is the next step. No one knows the intimate ins and outs of your business like your staff. If they care about your business and know your ears are open, they can be your biggest resource in suggesting improvements and letting you know what is really going on. One-on-one meetings with supervisors, group meetings, employee newsletters, orientation/review sessions, and training meetings are all effective ways to open the channels of conversation between you and your employees. These sessions let them know you care and encourage them to make the biggest difference they can.
An ongoing employee appreciation program is a good idea. Create a structure that is a part of your daily operation: a large bulletin board in a high-traffic area or a monthly party where awards and prizes are given (cash, great parking spaces, etc.). Give employees something to wear (e.g., a recognition pin) that signifies acknowledgement of the services they provide. Be creative and find something that effectively and continuously supports the goals of both your employee relations program and your overall PR plan.
TALKING TO YOUR COMMUNITY
All business is local. This is especially true in the restaurant business. While you could make the argument that a large portion of your business comes from out of town, it is still your local community that needs to believe in the value of your business. Restaurants that are not accepted by their local communities disappear. Also, you will not find a prosperous restaurant in a depressed area. Your community and you are one and the same and it is crucial to remember this as you design your PR program.
Restaurants are often considered hubs of their communities. They offer facilities for meetings, banquets, conventions, and other important social/economic functions. Many decisions that affect the future of local economies take place in these facilities, so it is easy to see how and why a hotel or restaurant cannot be successful unless the local community accepts it.
So, what does that mean to the restaurant GM? It does not simply mean that you should help support good causes. It means your business needs to be a leader in its community. In practice this means building bridges between your company and your community to maintain and foster your environment in a way that benefits both you and the community. Basically, your goal is to make your immediate world a better place in which everybody can thrive. The following are a few ideas that can be part of an effective community relations program:
• Fill a community need — Create something that wasn’t there before.
• Remove something that causes a community problem.
• Include “have-nots” in something that usually excludes them.
• Share your space, equipment, or expertise.
• Offer tutoring or otherwise mobilize your workforce as a helping hand.
• Promote your community elsewhere.
Being a good citizen is, of course, crucial, but you also need to convince your community of the value of your business. Most businesses provide jobs and pay taxes in their communities. Restaurants do these in spades because, despite technological advances, they are still labor-intensive businesses. Per dollar of income, they probably provide employment for more residents of your community than any other business. Also — and remind your community of this — hotels and restaurants not only attract visitors from all over the country and, perhaps, the world, but most hotel income is from money earned outside your community and is spent in it.
These are real benefits and they should be integrated into the message you send by being a good citizen. Designing this message is a straightforward but remarkably effective process:
1. List the things your establishment brings to the community: jobs, taxes, well-maintained architecture, etc.
2. List what your business receives from its community: employees, fire and police protection, trash removal, utilities, etc.
3. List your business’s complaints about your community: high taxes, air pollution, noise pollution, narrow roads, etc.
Once you have outlined these items, look for ways your business can lead the way in improving what does not work. As you do this, consult with your local Chamber of Commerce or Visitors’ Bureau. They may be able to integrate you into existing community betterment programs aimed at your objectives.
PLANNING FOR THE UNFORESEEN
If done well, your community relations program will create positive opinions in your community. In turn, this will cause local residents to recommend you as the place to eat when asked by tourists; it will encourage people to apply for jobs and may encourage suppliers to seek to do business with you. Also, if there is an emergency at your establishment, having a positive standing in the community will enable your property to be treated fairly.
An effective community relations program is a win-win situation because it gives you the opportunity to be a deep and abiding member of your community — improving the quality of life and opportunities around you — and, at the same time, contributes significantly to your bottom line.
Emergencies make bad news stories. Bad news stories are bad PR and they can destroy the image you have worked so hard to build. They can wipe away years of hard-won customer relations. There are numerous kinds of emergencies — earthquakes, fires, floods, political protests, crime, and more — and any of these events, if not managed properly, can destroy your public image. The law insists you have fire prevention programs and insurance, but there is no one forcing you to create a crisis–public relations program in case of emergency.
In order to meet a PR emergency, you must prepare now. If you have a strategy developed in advance, then when something bad does happen, you assure the most accurate, objective media coverage of the event. It is important that all your employees are aware of this plan and that they are reminded of it regularly. Because your employees generate a huge amount of your PR, it is crucial for them to know how to act and what to say — and not say — during a crisis. This simple detail can make all the difference in the world. Here are three basic aspects to an emergency press relations plan:
1. Your general manager or owner should be the only spokesperson during the time of the emergency. Make sure your employees know not to talk to the press and to refer all inquiries to the general manager or publicity coordinator. Make sure the GM is available at all times, day or night.
2. Know the facts of the situation before answering questions from the media.
3. Initiate contact.
Once the story is out, do not wait for the media to call you. This way you will ensure that they get accurate information. Plus, the media will appreciate your forthcoming attitude and your cooperation will reflect in their reporting.
The media will always ask the same who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. Knowing this and being prepared to anticipate their questions, you should be able to answer accurately. If you do not know the answer to a question, do not say, “No comment.” Explain why you cannot comment: The police are investigating, for example, and you do not have enough information to answer now but you will try to find the answer and get back to them. Make a point to do as promised.
In times of crisis it is crucial to put a positive slant on the news. Try to focus press attention on the diligent efforts of management to handle the emergency or on employees whose compassion and assistance made a difference. If something happens in your establishment that is not your fault and your establishment handles it well, it is an opportunity to showcase your heart and responsiveness.
The importance of a crisis-PR plan cannot be overstated. When an employee is injured or killed in your establishment or a guest suffers from food poisoning, the public assumes you are guilty. Whether or not you are even mildly at fault, people assume you are. Therefore, how you handle public relations during this time means the difference between a temporary loss of public support or the permanent loss of a great deal of business.
One always hopes that a crisis-PR plan remains unnecessary. Unfortunately, given the amount of hotel and restaurant accidents, mishaps, and disasters every year, being prepared for the worst is the best policy. Furthermore, while the entire establishment suffers during an emergency, the general manager who was caught unprepared suffers the most. Therefore, after calling the police, fire department, etc., it is the GM’s job to immediately find out what happened and take corrective actions. If the event warrants it, you should set up a room with a phone as a command post, then communicate to all your employees what you want them to do and not do. As part of your plan, your employees should know where flashlights are in case evacuation is necessary and they should be ready to guide guests to the nearest exits.
Next, the media must be contacted and the story disclosed, put into context, and told from your side. If the media gets all the information they need from you quickly, this increases the chances of the incident appearing as one story and not showing up again. If it is difficult for reporters to gather information and they need to seek other sources, the story may be spaced out over time, which will increase people’s chances of seeing it. This is obviously not what you want.
Having built strong media relations pays off during an emergency. A reporter you have a good relationship with may report an incident at a “local restaurant,” while one less acquainted with you — or downright hostile — will mention you specifically and push for the story to be on the front page. This is a crucial difference. It means that the person who will be the media liaison during an emergency should be building and nurturing good media relations now, in case anything does happen. And what have you got to lose? Strong media relations benefit you all the time.
All this is to say that if you do not guide the flow of information around your news event, somebody else will misguide it for you. With proper PR, a story that appears to the public, like a seafood restaurant that did not have any fresh seafood, can be authentically retold to show how the restaurant was the victim of a vendor’s warehouse fire. You can shift the public from viewing you as incompetent to having more faith than ever in your establishment. Public opinion depends on how effectively you manage information and how well you get your story across. For more information about promoting your restaurant I recommend the following books from Atlantic Publishing (www.atlantic-pub.com).
• Superior Customer Service: How to Keep Customers Racing Back to Your Business – Time Tested Examples from Leading Companies (Item # SCS-01).
• Getting Clients and Keeping Clients for Your Service Business: A 30 Day Step by Step Plan for Building Your Business (Item # GCK-01).
• The Food Service Professional Guide to Building Restaurant Profits (Item # FS9-01).
• The Food Service Professional Guide to Restaurant Marketing and Advertising (Item # FS3-01).
• The Food Service Professional Guide to Restaurant Promotion and Publicity (Item # FS4-01).
• The Food Service Professional Guide to Increasing Restaurant Sales (Item # FS15-01).