How a PR Agency's Board Handled a Client Crisis

Pulling senior staff off other client accounts to staff a crisis is a resourcing decision with real consequences for the accounts left short-handed, and it deserves the same documented rationale as any other major resource allocation choice the leadership makes. Write down which accounts were affected, for how long, and how client communication about the disruption was handled, even in the middle of an active crisis, because reconstructing this later from memory is far harder than a same-day note.

The agency in this example used a simple decision log during the crisis itself, not a full board resolution process, precisely because a heavier process would have slowed down decisions that needed to move fast. The record still existed; it just didn't need Diligent's full committee structure to exist well.

At one point during the crisis, the agency's team privately disagreed with a public statement the client's own executives wanted to issue, believing it understated the situation in a way that could backfire. This is exactly the kind of moment that belongs in the agency's own governance record: what was recommended, what the client decided instead, and how the agency documented having raised the concern. This protects the agency's own professional reputation if the client's chosen approach later draws criticism, and it's a categorically different kind of record than routine client service notes.

Neither Diligent nor BoardPro manages crisis response itself, that's a communications discipline, not a governance one, but both can hold the agency's own leadership decisions made during the crisis as a clean, dated record once things settle down enough to enter them. BoardPro's simpler structure suited this agency fine, since it's a founder-owned firm with no outside board seeking formal minutes; a larger, PE-backed agency handling the same crisis would have more reason to route these decisions through Diligent's heavier resolution tracking given a sponsor's own reporting expectations.

If the agency represents another client in a related industry, a competitor's product recall response can raise a real question about whether confidential crisis strategy learned for one client creates an unfair advantage, or a genuine conflict, in advising another. Screen new and existing engagements for this kind of overlap the same way any professional services firm should, and document the screening decision, even when the answer is clearly no conflict exists, so there's a record showing it was actually considered.

Looking back, the agency's leadership added a standing crisis-response protocol to their own internal governance: who has authority to reallocate staff during an active crisis, how client-facing disagreements with agency recommendations get documented, and a post-crisis review requirement within thirty days of any major client crisis closing. None of this needed new software, just a decision, once, to build the habit before the next crisis rather than improvising again.

Add a standing crisis-response protocol that covers:

• Who has authority to reallocate senior staff from other accounts during an active client crisis, and how that decision is recorded.
• How client-facing disagreements with the agency's recommendations get documented, in writing and close to when they occur.
• A post-crisis review within thirty days of any major client crisis closing.
• Standard language in engagement letters, so the fix does not depend on new software.

When agency staff serve as media spokespeople on a client's behalf, whether formally or informally during a fast-moving situation, the agency takes on a layer of professional exposure separate from the advice it gives privately, since a spokesperson's own public words can become the subject of scrutiny regardless of what internal counsel recommended. Clarify in every crisis engagement letter, ideally before any crisis actually happens, exactly what public-facing role the agency will and won't play, and document any departure from that plan in the moment it happens rather than after the fact.

Agencies that skip this step often discover the gap precisely when it matters most: mid-crisis, with a client assuming the agency will speak publicly on their behalf in a way the original engagement never actually contemplated or priced in.

The clearest fix this agency found wasn't a new piece of software, it was adding standard language to every new engagement letter defining crisis response scope, spokesperson role, and internal escalation authority before any crisis exists to pressure-test it under stress. Firms that wait until a crisis is underway to define these terms are negotiating them at the worst possible moment, with a client under real pressure and far less patience for scope discussions than they'd have in a calm contracting conversation.