Recovery Isn’t a Crisis PR Afterthought—It’s the Reputation Management Strategy

Recovery is more than getting back to BAU

Once the crisis abates, reputational recovery begins—and it’s relational

It’s easy to assume that once a crisis has passed, the job is done. The immediate issue has been resolved, the statements have been issued, the media has moved on. Teams breathe a collective sigh of relief.

But here’s a hard-earned, hard-learned truth: business continuity is not the same as reputational recovery.

If last week’s blog was about how culture carries you through a crisis, this is about what comes next how you rebuild relationships, credibility and trust after the headlines have faded and the adrenaline has worn off.

Why does the recovery phase matter? Because reputation management is more than surving the moment. It's about recovering well, that’s where your real reputation lives and breathes.

The myth of “back to business as usual”

Crisis comms and Crisis PR isn’t just about managing the moment. It’s about navigating what comes after. And yet, too many organisations pour all their energy into response and leave recovery as an afterthought.

You’ve led your comms team, you’ve managed the situation, you’ve kept operations going. But your people - inside and outside the organisation - are still watching. Still waiting to see what you’ve learned, what will change, and whether they still trust you.

If you treat recovery as a box-ticking exercise, your stakeholders will believe that you treat your corporate values the same way, thus continuing the slow erosion of brand.

A good example: Marks & Spencer and the IT outage

Take the recent IT outage at Marks & Spencer as an example of recovery done well. Faced with widespread disruption to tills and self-checkouts across the UK, M&S responded with speed, clarity and tone-perfect communications.

Their leadership was visible and human. They didn’t attempt to downplay the issue or hide behind vague statements. Instead, they communicated clearly across channels, acknowledged the disruption, apologised to customers and staff, and provided timely updates throughout the whole period.  

M&S’s long-term brand work - the kind of ‘always-on’ brand investment many of us have had to fight to secure or protect with senior leaders – helped to carry the company through the crisis. Brand meant customers and suppliers gave M&S the space to recover. Yes, they lost sales - their online operation was down for weeks - but footfall in stores increased, and customers are returning quickly.

Importantly, they struck the right balance between professionalism and warmth—something many organisations struggle to achieve under pressure. The icing on the cake was an email to all of M&S’ affected customers (those with cancelled orders) with a £10 gift voucher to say thank you for their trust, loyalty, and understanding.

What made the difference?

• A long-term investment in brand marketing (not product marketing)

• A culture that trusted frontline comms teams to respond quickly

• Messaging grounded in real accountability, not vague reassurance

• A clear understanding that reputation is built in the recovery, not the announcement

  
  

It’s a textbook example of a crisis comms team empowered by readiness, leadership, and culture—and of an organisation that understands trust is retained through transparency and tone, not perfection. At each turn, M&S made the right decisions not the easy ones.

Of course, you can always go punchy too, just like Astronomer have done with their Gwyneth Paltrow film which has been trending on LinkedIn (check out my post here).

Recovery is reputational management strategy in action

I’ve led crises in high-pressure environments - whether public institutions, cultural bodies, or large-scale private organisations - I’ve seen one thing make or break post-crisis recovery: your ability to treat it as a relational, not just procedural, challenge.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Transparency, not spin

• Leadership visibility, not silence

• Concrete commitments, not vague promises

• Long-term listening, not short-term announcements

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When recovery is done well, it can actually strengthen your reputation. When it’s neglected, it can quietly erode the trust you've worked so hard to protect.

Ask yourself: are we rebuilding trust—or just resuming activity?

If you’re navigating the post-crisis phase, ask your leadership team these questions:

1. Have we clearly acknowledged what happened and our role in it?

2. Are we sharing not just the fix, but the learning?

3. Do our people believe us—and feel safe again?

4. Are we still communicating with the same clarity we used in the peak of the crisis?

5. Are we measuring the long-tail impact of the crisis on relationships, not just operations?

   
   

Crisis PR and reputation management must be centred around rebuilding trust and it should take precedence over almost all other business activity (or at least be as important!). Because stakeholders—whether employees, customers, funders or regulators—won’t remember the exact details of the response. But they will remember how you made them feel during the aftermath.

Recovery is not reputation repair. It’s reputation investment.

You can’t simply reset a reputation after a crisis. But you can rebuild it with intention. Intention is core part of reputation management during times of peace and critically, during times of crisis. That means staying present. Beginning pure brand investment. Following through. Making your actions match your values. And understanding that credibility is not restored with a single press release or staff email.

Crisis PR and Reputation Management - how we can help

This is my latest blog in the crisis series, design to offer practical advice and tips for leaders and organisations.

If my first was about leading comms through crisis, the second was on readiness, and third was about resilience, this one is about repair—done properly. Slowly. With purpose.

Because recovery isn’t just the end of the crisis.

👉 It’s the beginning of how people remember it.

📩 If your organisation is in the recovery phase, or if you’re planning for what comes after your next reputational challenge, we can help. Summit Communications works with leaders to rebuild trust, re-engage stakeholders, and communicate lasting change. Get in touch.