A disgruntled customer, an employee raising allegations online or a video capturing an incident at a business premises can now trigger a corporate crisis within hours, exposing companies to reputational damage, loss of customer confidence and declining brand value.
In Nigeria's increasingly digital business environment, the challenge of crisis management is no longer simply about controlling what the public hears. With customers, employees, eyewitnesses and influencers able to publish information instantly, companies must increasingly prepare to respond to narratives they do not fully control.
Bodex Hungbo, founder of Bodex Media and a public relations and digital media strategist, said organisations should stop viewing crises as unusual events and begin treating them as an inevitable business risk.
She said technological changes had fundamentally altered the communication landscape by giving virtually every stakeholder the ability to share information and shape public opinion.
“Today, everybody has a platform,” Hungbo said.
According to her, customers can publish their experiences, employees can make allegations publicly, eyewitnesses can upload videos and influencers can amplify issues to potentially millions of people.
This means a controversy may already have gained momentum before a company's communications department becomes aware of it.
Speed versus accuracy
While acknowledging the importance of responding quickly during a crisis, Hungbo warned businesses against allowing the pressure to respond immediately to compromise accuracy.
A company that issues a rushed statement based on incomplete or unverified information could subsequently be forced to make corrections. Rather than resolving the crisis, such reversals may create additional confusion and weaken public confidence.
“The objective should not simply be to issue the fastest statement. It should be to issue the fastest credible statement,” she said.
She advised organisations to acknowledge emerging concerns where appropriate while investigations are still under way, rather than attempting to fill information gaps with speculation.
The approach, she suggested, allows companies to demonstrate that they are listening without making claims that could later prove inaccurate.
When a complaint becomes a crisis
The rise of social media has also changed the way companies should interpret and respond to criticism.
Not every negative comment represents an organised attack, just as not every dissatisfied customer should be regarded as an adversary.
The controversy involving Erisco Foods and consumer Chioma Okoli in 2023 demonstrates how an individual product complaint can evolve into a much broader reputational crisis.
Okoli's Facebook complaint concerning the taste of Erisco Foods' Nagiko Tomato Mix attracted widespread public attention, particularly following the company's response and subsequent legal developments.
What began as a consumer complaint eventually became part of a larger public debate involving consumer rights, corporate conduct and how businesses respond to criticism.
For corporate organisations, the episode offers a significant lesson: the response to a complaint can sometimes become a bigger crisis than the complaint itself.
Hungbo therefore advised businesses to first establish whether a complaint is genuine, investigate the circumstances and determine whether an underlying operational problem exists before responding publicly.
Where allegations are false, she said companies should rely on evidence to correct the record. Where criticism is legitimate, however, acknowledging the problem and outlining corrective measures may be more effective than entering into a public confrontation.
Crisis plans cannot begin after the crisis
One of the major weaknesses in corporate crisis management, according to Hungbo, is the tendency of businesses to start developing a response structure only after a controversy has already erupted.
Organisations should instead determine in advance who will monitor online conversations, verify emerging information, approve public statements, communicate with journalists and serve as the official spokesperson.
They should also establish clear escalation procedures to determine when a customer complaint, employee allegation or operational failure should be brought to the attention of senior management.
Such preparation becomes even more important in an environment where digital content can remain accessible long after an organisation believes an issue has disappeared.
A social media post may be deleted, but screenshots could already have been taken and redistributed across other platforms. Statements issued by a company can likewise be archived, quoted or republished long after the original controversy has faded.
Every public response can therefore become part of the company's lasting digital record.
PR cannot replace accountability
Hungbo also stressed that public relations cannot permanently disguise operational failures.
“If a product is unsafe, the problem must be fixed. If customers have been harmed, their concerns must be addressed. If an organisation makes a mistake, it must take corrective action.”
For her, communication should explain the steps being taken by an organisation, but it cannot serve as a substitute for accountability.
A company's reputation, she argued, is ultimately determined not only by what it says when controversy erupts, but also by what stakeholders see the organisation do afterwards.
This means the end of a trending hashtag, the disappearance of a controversy from the news cycle or a decline in social media conversations should not automatically be interpreted as the end of a crisis.
Issues can return months or even years later, particularly when a fresh incident reminds the public of an earlier controversy.
Crisis management as business risk management
For businesses operating in today's digital economy, crisis communication is increasingly becoming an integral part of broader risk management.
The organisations most capable of protecting their reputations may not necessarily be those with the most elaborate public relations campaigns, but those that prepare before trouble emerges.
They must monitor conversations before an issue begins trending, verify information before making public statements, respond with speed without sacrificing credibility and, most importantly, address the underlying problem where one exists.
In an environment where virtually everyone can become a publisher, the ability to manage a crisis effectively increasingly depends on what a company does before the crisis begins.