Crisis Public Relations Viewed From Wenchuan Earthquake

China's worst earthquake in 30 years is evolving into a huge disaster.

In one city alone, more than 18 thousand people were buried in the ruins.

In the disaster area, 70% of the roads and bridges are now impassable.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Sichuan mountainous areas urgently need emergency assistance.

Our government is acting.

The Wenchuan earthquake shows us that the government's ability to cope with disasters (major crises) has been greatly improved.

As a professional communicator, we often say that when a crisis happens, three principles should be followed: speed first, customer first, and information pparency.

In the three principles, speed first is the most important rule.

In the process of dealing with such a great natural disaster, the individual thinks that our government's ability to deal with crises is gradually maturing.

When a crisis occurs, it is necessary to respond at the first time.

A quick action and a minute later can lead to more irreversible losses.

This is especially true for enterprises.

The reaction speed of our government lies in the following aspects:

Emergency speed is fast.

After the earthquake, Hu Jintao instructed to rescue the wounded as soon as possible to ensure the safety of the people in the disaster area. Wen Jiabao immediately rushed to the disaster area to direct the relief work, and the PLA General Staff emergency plan was launched immediately.

Information disclosure is fast.

At 14:46 on May 12th, Xinhua announced that there was a strong earthquake in grade 7.8 (later recognized as grade 8) in Wenchuan, Sichuan, and a magnitude 3.9 earthquake occurred in Tongzhou, Beijing.

Immediately after that, all the headlines of the main portals in China have these messages, so that the whole nation has a timely and comprehensive understanding of the anomalies.

The rumor is fast.

After the Wenchuan earthquake, rumours spread out, including the aftershocks of Beijing that night.

However, only 2 hours after the Wenchuan earthquake, the State Seismological Bureau announced that the aftershocks in Beijing that evening were not true, and that the devastating earthquake in Beijing will not happen in the near future.

Fundraising and rescue are fast.

After the disaster, NGO at all levels mobilized various forces to raise funds for disaster relief for the first time.

The second morning of the earthquake, including the China Youth Development Foundation, the China foundation for poverty alleviation, the Edward foundation, the Chinese Red Cross foundation, the Western sunshine foundation, the Wantong foundation, and the Beijing rural women's cultural development center, the Shaanxi women's Family Research Association, the Beijing Huaxia Institute of economic and social development, and so on, 57 NGO actively took action.

This is an unprecedented speed.

From earthquake to information release, to start contingency plans, emergency rescue and disaster relief, all these works start within two hours.

In this earthquake relief, let us look at the speed of an enterprise.

On the afternoon of 12, when the news of the disaster hit Wenchuan, Carrefour China immediately contacted Chengdu.

Carrefour in China, after a preliminary understanding of the situation, immediately instructed five stores in Chengdu to donate emergency relief items such as tents and quilts to the disaster area.

Meanwhile, Carrefour China has informed the relevant headquarters of the disaster.

Carrefour International Foundation immediately decided to donate RMB 2 million yuan to the disaster hit areas in China to save the people in the disaster area.

This is the first corporate donation we saw on the day of the Wenchuan earthquake.

Looking back at the previous "boycott storm" and the resulting controversy, we see that in the face of irresistible natural disasters, one side is difficult, the eight sides help each other, some misunderstandings are melting, and all the forces are gathering.

On the contrary, let us look at a failure case that does not follow the principle of speed first.

In June 9, 1999, 120 people in Belgium (40 of whom were students) were poisoned, vomited, dizzy and headache after drinking Coca-Cola. 80 people in France also had the same symptoms.

Coca Cola Co, which has a history of 113 years, has faced a major crisis in history.

The correct way of dealing with such crises by a general enterprise has three steps: first, to recover products with problems; two, to make timely statements about developments to consumers; and three, to make apologies as soon as possible.

On the basis of this comparison, it can be seen that Coca Cola Co did all but one week late, and after the Belgian government made a decision to stop selling Coca-Cola.

Even the Belgian Minister of health, Vanden Bosh, complained that it is hard to understand how Coca-Cola's global reputation is so slow in response to the crisis.

The crisis has caused huge losses to Coca-Cola in terms of economic and brand.

Secondly, when crisis arises, we must follow the law of customer first.

No matter what happens, the first thing is to solve the problem. The attitude to solve the problem must be sincere and urgent.

Starting from solving problems, we should not let users feel that they are kicking balls and shirking their responsibilities.

After the earthquake, the prime minister put forward four requirements: the first thing to do is to win more than a minute and a second to save a trapped person.

He put the life of the masses in the first place, reflecting the spirit of leaders putting people's interests above everything else.

This spirit has also affected the whole nation. We see that the government and the masses are investing in this battle with unprecedented enthusiasm and at all costs.

As we all know, on the top of Wanli, human life is large, and priceless life is above everything else.

Whether people's right to life can be protected is the basis of everything.

In this country, the pain of the living is pitiable.

In the most difficult time of fighting against the most catastrophic earthquake, the people only want to have a strong country, so that the living people will not die and the disaster will stop.

We hope that a well organized and orderly government system can make this sudden catastrophe not be successively killed or injured.