Urgent Assistance

Chelgate is available to provide urgent crisis assistance, without notice, 24 hours a day. You do not need to be an existing Chelgate client to make use of our Emergency Service, although different terms apply, and it may be necessary to carry out some urgent checks and validation measures.

Call the 24 hour Chelgate Crisis Line:  020 7939 7999

Speed of response can be critical to the successful management of a crisis.  What you do now, or what you say,  can shape the entire future course of the crisis.

Chelgate has the experience, expertise and specialist understanding of the particular dynamics that apply in crises, to help you ensure that your early decisions are robust, clear, well-founded and effective.   We also have the skilled team members available to provide emergency additional support to your existing communications team.

Containing a public relations crisis or acute issue demands professional assistance. Please contact us now to discuss your particular situation with the crisis team. Chelgate can be contacted during work hours on 020 7939 7939 or after work hours on our dedicated crisis line, 020 7939 7999.

Within our crisis containment service, we offer various forms of assistance, all of which come in ways tailored entirely to your or your organisation’s needs.

Consulting and advice

When a crisis strikes, many normal business rules change. The right response may well be the counter-intuitive one.  Information moves much faster, and differently, often through conduits that may not normally be significant channels for your communications. New stakeholders enter the picture who would not normally feature among your priority audiences. Normal processes for clearance and approval may now be too slow and cumbersome.  Audiences may respond to events, or to information, in ways that are entirely foreign to their normal patterns.  When these things happen, management teams will often benefit from access to advice from experienced, expert and supportive Crisis Management who understand the particular rules and demands which a crisis can create.

As crisis management professionals, with a huge range of relevant experience, Chelgate is well placed to offer clients that expert advice and guidance concerning the special requirements of crisis response

Ad specialists in the field, Chelgate have acted as advising crisis PR consultants to a host of companies, schools, government bodies, institutions, family interests, charities and private individuals.  We advise on any issue that might pose a serious threat to the way an organisation is perceived, or to the relationships critical to that organisation.  Our advice will cover all areas of relevant communications, and also address the strategy behind those communications.  But we also look at the impact of corporate actions on reputation and relationships, and our advice may relate to potential corporate action as much as it does to communication.

For more information on this service, please visit our dedicated Consulting and Advice page, or call us directly.

Active crisis management

In addition to providing strategic advice, Chelgate can also provide the additional communications resources needed when a crisis strikes.

For some clients we provide the front-line initial media contact role, both fielding media queries and also initiating contact with the media, distributing media information etc.  Even if a client has a good and professional internal media relations capability, that will almost certainly be geared to normal circumstances, and can easily be overwhelmed by the intense, continuing, 24/7  pressures created by a high profile crisis.  Whilst as a general rule we believe that a client should speak for itself, there are occasions when that may not be possible or wise.  On those occasions, Chelgate has also acted as the official client spokesperson.  At times, too, a crisis may require physical media relations presence – for example, to set up and host a media room, to manage a press conference, to deal with media at a crisis/ disaster location etc.   Here again, these demands may over-extend an in-house team who also have to manage the still continuing needs of business as usual.

For more information on this service, call us directly.

Legal challenges

Often, when a crisis strikes, there will be important legal implications. Chelgate works closely with lawyers, and understands the importance of balancing reputation protection considerations and legal requirements . On occasion, even where a client has a good and well-established relationship to meet the legal needs of its normal business, we will recommend lawyers who can offer the specialist and particular skills required by exceptional crisis circumstances.  For more information on this service, please visit our dedicated Legal and Defamation page.

Issues management

Chelgate helps clients to identify, understand and pre-empt major threats to their reputations. In our issues management practice, we advise clients in stand-alone strategy sessions or over extended periods of months or years. For more information about our Issues Management service, please visit Issues management.

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