How Marriott communicators responded to Islamabad bombing

Fast response, regular updates and an established crisis plan were key

Roger Conner was passing by his family room television on the way out the door to the dry cleaner and the car wash when something on MSNBC’s news ticker caught his attention.

“It was the first alert that hit the airwaves here, about a bombing in Pakistan at the Marriott. Eight people dead,” he recalls.

The vice president of communications for Marriott International, Conner scrapped his plans for “all those errands people run on Saturday mornings” and immediately called Kathleen Matthews, the company’s executive vice president of global corporate affairs.

After he gave her the news, she called Bill Marriott—“there actually is a guy whose name is on the door, who runs our company,” Conner says—and put a crisis plan into action.

Communicators camp out at HQ for the weekend

By the time the suicide bomber smashed his explosive-packed truck into the main entrance of the Islamabad Marriott Sept. 20—killing at least 40 people, severely injuring hundreds more and setting off a natural gas leak that eventually ignited and destroyed the entire hotel—the crisis team was used to spending weekends at the office.

“We’d been at headquarters for something like three weekends in a row,” says Conner, referring to the team’s response to hurricanes Gustav and Ike. “Fortunately, a crisis communication team exists; unfortunately, there’s a need for it, because our hotels have faced crisis situations before—the most traumatic, or impactful, was 9-11, when we lost a hotel between the two towers in the Trade Center.”

The good news/bad news result is that everyone knew exactly what to do after the Islamabad bombing.

“I live five minutes from Marriott headquarters and within the half hour, I was the first person in the office,” says Conner, who’s been at the company since 1977. “While we can all work remotely, there is more at your disposal at the office in terms of equipment and technology.
”
In the next half hour, five teams of crisis communicators (in addition to many other non-communicator crisis responders) gathered in the Bethesda, Md., office.

The research and writing team is responsible for being in touch with the incident location, “so not a whole of people are calling and bothering the general manager,” Conner says. They’re also responsible for writing the initial statement within 15 minutes and then something more explanatory within the first hour.

The media team receives info from the research and writing team and uses it to communicate with the media.

The internal communication team gets information to employees.

The community relations team is responsible for communicating with the Red Cross or FEMA or other outlets associated with the given crisis.

The logistics team runs around setting up the “war room,” making sure the team has laptops, BlackBerrys and all other necessary tools and technology. “And snacks—they make sure we have snacks!” Conner says. The team also stocks and oversees a remote location in case Marriott headquarters is inoperable.

On stand-by were high-level representatives from a number of departments, like HR and Operations, who could be contacted to make quick judgment calls.

“You need to make decisions quickly in a crisis, so we have pre-identified high-level leaders who must be at our immediate disposal,” Conner says. “For instance, we have a top lawyer ready to clear our statements quickly. He knows we need to be able to get to him. And since not everyone is immediately reachable, there’s more than one on the list.”

First response released in first 15 minutes

Within the first 15 minutes of meeting, the team had its first statement of response up online, a comment from Bill Marriott expressing incredible sadness and empathy at the loss of lives and the injuries to people.

http://www.ragan.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=5AA50C55146B4C8C98F903986BC02C56&tier=4&id=91B34AD7F33643A2A1844267E47C30FF&AudID=3FF14703FD8C4AE98B9B4365B978201A