A study revealed how UK companies aren’t fully prepared to deal with crises related to their values. Hotwire recently released a global study for the role of crisis communications among international brands and their marketing leaders. It comes as no surprise that 47% of marketing leaders were very or quite worried about a crisis event.

However, the lack of experience with managing a crisis event could be the root of the trouble, as only 46 % of the UK marketing leaders have experience with it. Globally 58 % of marketing leaders have dealt with a crisis, which puts UK brands behind the global average. This creates a vulnerable position for the UK brands as they are jeopardizing their reputations in the case of a crisis.

The aftermath of a dealing poorly with a crisis situation, could have a major backlash on brands: “While nearly two-thirds (64%) of marketers understood that poor communications around crisis issues or events could lead to customer loss, only just over half (53%) of business leaders shared this sentiment (…),” says the report. Not responding well to a crisis situation could cause consequences like loss of brand loyalty or lost business relationship.

Marketing leaders, the study says, need to develop a plan in case of a crisis event, to prevent handling a crisis poorly and causing damage to the brand and its reputation. However, the survey says, “The majority (77%) of marketing leaders feel they have a plan in place in case they were faced with a crisis event. Yet only just over half (58%) of UK business decision makers feel they have a solid plan.” Furthermore these emergency plans aren’t identical, which creates a big disruption between the brands’ plans in the case of a crisis event.