CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS / WORKING NOTE
A message sent
is not a message understood.
Prepare the people, channels, and decisions behind an effective incident update.
Sending an emergency message is only the first part of communication. Someone must receive it, understand what to do, respond through a usable route, and know where the next reliable update will appear.
The BCI’s 2024 research remains useful because it connects communication technology with the people and procedures needed to use it during a crisis.
THE EXECUTIVE BRIEF
The decisions that matter.
- Restore the original report’s focus on dispersed teams, message response, and contact information.
- Treat the 2024 survey findings as dated respondent evidence, not current universal performance.
- Exercise the loss of normal communications as well as the use of the emergency tool.
THE ORIGINAL RESEARCH / FEBRUARY 2024
More training does not make every message effective.
The BCI’s 13 February 2024 release for its tenth Emergency and Crisis Communications Report described the shift towards SaaS tools and integrated arrangements for dispersed workforces. It reported regular training at 79.3%, up from 68.4% in the previous report, and said 70% of activations met organisations’ expected response level.
The leading reason given for plan failure was recipients not responding to emergency messages. These are report findings about participating organisations, not a promise that a chosen product will deliver a particular response time.
The useful management distinction is between activity and outcome. A tool can dispatch every message while a team still lacks an acknowledgement route, current contact details, or instructions suited to the situation.
THE MESSAGE DESK
Design the first update for the person receiving it.
AN ILLUSTRATIVE HOLDING MESSAGE
Be useful before you can be complete.
WHAT WE KNOW
State the confirmed effect
Describe the service or location affected. Keep unverified cause or attribution out of the message.
WHAT TO DO
Give the immediate instruction
Explain the action, support route, and any relevant safety priority for this audience.
NEXT UPDATE
Make the next contact predictable
State where verified updates will appear and when to expect the next one, even if investigation continues.
CyberSolace message design prompts, not an incident statement. Actual wording, timing, and approval depend on the circumstances.
Employees, customers, suppliers, and the public may need different messages. A lone worker checking a phone has different needs from an executive authorising an operational change. Consider accessibility, language, location, and whether it is safe or practical to acknowledge the alert.
THE COMMUNICATION DEPENDENCY
What happens if email or the usual login is unavailable?
Cloud tools can help reach distributed teams. A remote service can still depend on the organisation’s identity system, internet connection, contact directory, or administrators. Identify those dependencies before describing the tool as an independent fallback.
Keep essential contact information current and available to the people authorised to use it. Minimise unnecessary personal data and control access, while ensuring the crisis process does not rely entirely on the system most likely to be unavailable.
Agree who can send an initial message, who approves updates, and who acts if the usual approver cannot be reached. A technically available platform is of little use if nobody knows whether they may use it.
EXERCISE THE OUTCOME
Test receipt, understanding, and response.
Choose a realistic disruption and a defined audience. Check whether the contact information works, the message is understood, the acknowledgement can be completed, and the team can identify people who need help.
- Delivery: what does the platform’s status actually confirm?
- Response: who acknowledged or took the required action, and who remains uncontacted?
- Continuity: can the group find the next update when the main system is unavailable?
- Learning: which gap has an owner and a recheck date?
Use the debrief to examine non-response rather than treating it as an individual failure. The cause may be a stale number, an unclear message, an inappropriate channel, or an unavailable device. Each needs a different improvement.
KEEP THE PROGRAMME CURRENT
Review the process when the workforce or service changes.
Contact information, suppliers, working arrangements, and responsibilities change between annual exercises. Build updates into ordinary joiner, mover, leaver, and supplier-management processes.
Keep an incident record sufficient to reconstruct decisions and messages. Review what helped, what delayed action, and what should change. Where a new specialist platform is proposed, ask which demonstrated gap it will close and what dependencies it adds.
The 2024 report link remains as further reading; publisher access can vary. The accessible BCI release supports the dated findings discussed here; later editions concern different reporting periods.
A PRACTICAL NEXT STEP
Rehearse the loss of the usual channel.
Bring the service owner, communications lead, and a small staff group together to test how one reliable message reaches its audience.
SOURCES & EDITORIAL REVIEW
Historical findings and incident accounts are dated in the text. Illustrative review prompts are CyberSolace commentary. Editorial review: 20 October 2026.