1. The Problem
Crisis hits at 2 AM. Your system's down. 10,000 customers can't access their accounts. The CEO's calling. What do you say?
You're scrolling Twitter and see it: your company name trending. Not good trending. 'System down for 3 hours' trending. Your phone explodes—CEO, board members, angry customers, reporters asking for comment. You open your crisis management doc and find... nothing. Or worse, a 47-page PDF written in 2019 that says 'assess the situation' and 'communicate transparently.' Cool. How? What words? Who gets told first? What if legal says one thing and PR says another? You're winging it, everyone's watching, and every minute of silence makes it worse.
30-90 minutes
Average crisis response delay
From 'oh crap' to first official statement. That's 30-90 minutes of speculation, angry tweets, competitor dunks, and brand damage compounding. Every minute you're silent, someone else controls the narrative.
67% of crises
Escalate due to poor initial response
The crisis itself isn't the killer—it's the botched response. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong audience at the wrong time. Contradicting yourself. Appearing defensive. One bad statement and you're apologizing for the apology.
$4.1M average
Cost of a major crisis
Data breaches, PR disasters, product recalls—the direct costs are brutal. But the hidden costs? Lost trust, customer churn, talent exodus, years rebuilding reputation. Companies fold over mishandled crises, not the crisis itself.
"We had a data breach on Friday at 6 PM. No playbook. No pre-written statements. We spent the weekend arguing about what to say while customers melted down on social media. By Monday we'd lost 30% of our active users. The breach was bad. Our response killed us."
— VP of Operations, SaaS company (now former VP)
2. The 7 Crisis Response Prompts
Example: 01: Situation Assessment
You are a crisis management expert. Analyze this situation and provide a structured assessment: SITUATION: [Paste crisis details: What happened? When? Who's affected? What's the immediate impact?] Provide: 1. SEVERITY LEVEL (1-5, where 5 is existential threat) 2. IMMEDIATE RISKS (next 1-6 hours) 3. STAKEHOLDER IMPACT (customers, employees, investors, media, regulators) 4. REQUIRED ACTIONS (prioritized by urgency) 5. COMMUNICATION TIMELINE (who needs to know what, when) Format as a decision-ready brief. Be specific about timing and priorities. If information is missing but critical, flag it. Example situation to analyze: Our payment processing system went down at 2 PM EST. 50,000 customers can't complete purchases. Error messages are showing on checkout pages. Engineering says it's a database issue, ETA for fix is 2-4 hours. Customers are complaining on Twitter. Our competitor just tweeted 'Our systems are running smoothly 😊'.
✅ Generated Output:
✅ Intro Paragraph:
CRISIS ASSESSMENT REPORT SEVERITY LEVEL: 3/5 (High Impact, Manageable) - Not existential but significant revenue + reputation risk - Time-sensitive: every hour = ~$25K in lost transactions IMMEDIATE RISKS (Next 1-6 Hours): 1. Revenue loss: $50-150K if outage extends to 4+ hours 2. Customer churn: 10-15% of affected users may switch to competitors 3. Social media amplification: trending negative if no response in 30 min 4. Media pickup: tech blogs will cover if outage exceeds 3 hours 5. Trust erosion: customers questioning reliability STAKEHOLDER IMPACT: - CUSTOMERS (50K affected): Cannot complete purchases, frustrated, vocal on social - EMPLOYEES: Engineering under pressure, support overwhelmed with tickets - INVESTORS: Concerned about revenue impact + competitive positioning - MEDIA: Monitoring for story angle if prolonged - REGULATORS: Not applicable unless payment data compromised REQUIRED ACTIONS (Prioritized): 1. IMMEDIATE (0-15 min): Post holding statement on Twitter/status page 2. URGENT (15-30 min): Email all affected customers with ETA + compensation offer 3. HIGH (30-60 min): Prepare detailed incident report for investors 4. MEDIUM (1-2 hours): Brief customer support with FAQs + talking points 5. ONGOING: Hourly updates until resolved, then post-mortem COMMUNICATION TIMELINE: NOW (0-15 min): - Twitter/status page: 'We're aware of checkout issues affecting some customers. Our team is actively working on a fix. ETA: 2-4 hours. We'll update every 30 minutes.' - Pin tweet, update every 30 min with progress 15-30 MIN: - Email to affected customers: Acknowledge issue, apologize, provide ETA, offer 20% discount on next purchase - Internal Slack: Update all teams on situation + customer communication plan 30-60 MIN: - Investor brief (if public company): Incident summary, financial impact estimate, resolution timeline - Media holding statement (if contacted): 'We experienced a temporary technical issue affecting checkout. Systems are being restored. No customer data was compromised.' EVERY 30 MIN UNTIL RESOLVED: - Twitter/status updates with specific progress - Internal team updates POST-RESOLUTION: - Thank you message to customers + confirmation of discount - Detailed post-mortem for stakeholders - Internal review of incident response
✅ Meta Description:
Why this works: Crises feel chaotic but follow patterns. This prompt forces you to think in layers: severity → risks → stakeholders → actions → timeline. It's the difference between panic-posting and strategic response. The key is TIMING—who needs to know what, when. Customers need acknowledgment in 15 minutes. Investors need details in an hour. Media can wait until you have facts. // Try it now: Copy this prompt. Replace the example with any crisis scenario (real or hypothetical). Watch it structure chaos into a decision tree. This is your first 15 minutes handled.
3. Quick Win: 10-Minute Crisis Prep
Test the playbook before you need it
Run a crisis simulation in 10 minutes. See what breaks.
Don't wait for a real crisis to discover your playbook doesn't work. Run this 10-minute simulation with your team today. Pick a realistic scenario (system outage, PR disaster, security breach), feed it through the three prompts, and see what happens. You'll find gaps immediately: Who approves statements? Where do we post updates? How do we reach customers? What if legal disagrees with PR? Fix those gaps now, not at 2 AM when everything's on fire.
Pick Your Crisis
Choose a realistic scenario for your company. System outage? Product recall? Executive scandal? Data breach? Pick the one that scares you most—that's the one you're least prepared for.
Run the Prompts
Feed your scenario through Prompt 1 (Assessment), Prompt 2 (Statements), and Prompt 3 (FAQ). Don't edit anything yet—just generate the outputs and see what you get.
Find the Gaps
Read the outputs with your team. What's missing? What's wrong? Who needs to approve these statements? Where would you actually post them? What legal/compliance issues did the prompts miss? Write down every gap.
Without Playbook
30-90 min → first response
- Arguing about what to say
- Contradictory statements
- Missed stakeholders
- Defensive tone
- Crisis escalates
With This System
10-15 min → coordinated response
- Pre-written templates
- All stakeholders covered
- Consistent messaging
- Clear accountability
- Crisis contained
By The Numbers
10 min
Crisis Prep Time
15 min
First Response
4 audiences
Covered Simultaneously
Build This Into Your Workflow?
We build custom crisis management systems that integrate with your communication tools, trigger automatically when incidents are detected, and handle stakeholder notifications in real-time. Your playbook, always ready, never outdated.