Crisis Communications: How GoDaddy.com's Bob Parsons Can Recover from Bad Publicity

Name one CEO whose shoes you wouldn’t want to be in right now. I’m going to go out on a limb and say Bob Parsons, CEO and founder of GoDaddy.com. The world’s largest Web hosting provider and domain name registrar is under attack again. No, it’s not because of his edgy, provocative commercials. Parsons is now taking some hefty hits because of a video he posted on his blog during a recent trip to Zimbabwe.

In the video, Parsons shoots an elephant and gives it to the villagers to butcher up and claims that he’s providing the people with food and helping save the crops. With more than 980 comments on Parsons blog alone, almost every national media outlet is on top of this story right now and bashing him. Instead of apologizing and trying to find a way to remedy the situation, Parsons sees no wrong in what he did and is sticking to his guns. To be completely honest, it’s killing his brand. Someone is in need of some serious crisis communications assistance. I’m curious what advice their PR specialist, Phil Stuart, is offering to help alleviate the issue instead of letting it exacerbate. Someone needs to have a serious chit chat with Mr. Parsons and explain the damage he’s doing to his company—fast! 

Unfortunately for Parsons, not many people viewing the video see his good deed the way he envisioned people might, and now he’s in trouble. If Heidi Montag publicly announces on Twitter that she’s no longer a customer, you know you’re in deep trouble.

How does a company handle a situation like this?  Here are five tips to keep in mind when your company needs to go into crisis communication mode.

1. Experience is key: When news like this breaks, it’s essential that you have a professional with the right level of experience helping alleviate the problem. If your company doesn’t have an in-house PR team, you should seriously consider hiring an outside agency that has experience in crisis communications. These individuals are responsible for creating FAQ documents, drafting and issuing statements, ensuring the messaging is consistent, coordinating press conferences and much more. These experts know how to work under pressure and do their best to control the damage in any way they can. This certainly isn’t a job that should be left to an intern. If you have an in-house PR team, it’s always good to have practice fire drills and brainstorm possible mishaps that could occur and map out a strategy for each scenario. You can never be too prepared and want to be able to react quickly and appropriately.

In addition, PR professionals work hard at developing and maintaining solid relationships with reporters. If something ever goes awry, those relationships with media can go a long way toward avoiding negative coverage, so it’s always good to have someone on your side that has experience and good media connections.

2. Investigate the situation: If something occurs at your company, the first thing you should do is always investigate the situation and uncover the facts before taking any action. Even if that means posting a comment on the company’s website or social networks indicating that the company is looking into the situation and will respond immediately once information has been collected. Don’t leave people hanging and think that the problem is going to go away and all will be well and good. Make sure that you respond as soon as you know something and ensure them that you’re doing something about it.

The last thing a company should do is jump the gun and make comments without first knowing the facts. According to an AOL article, Parsons was misinformed and doesn’t really understand the problems occurring and the politics behind what’s REALLY happening in Zimbabwe.

3. Respond with the facts: Once you’ve gathered all the information and facts, it’s time to respond. Depending on the magnitude of the problem, be prepared to respond to every comment. This means monitoring Twitter, Facebook, blogs and websites. In addition, make sure you return media inquiries right away. The faster that you’re able to talk to these people and give your side of the story, the quicker the issue will hopefully be resolved. It’s important to minimize the damage to your brand and it’s going to be a constant work in progress and won’t go away overnight. GoDaddy has directed all Twitter questions to Parsons blog.

@GODaddy: You can see Parsons' public personal responses in his video blog comments. Click "Bob's Replies"  bobparsons.me

In addition, Parsons is responding back and informing people where he’ll be sharing his side of the story on news outlets.

@DRBobParsons: “Over 10 nat'l interviews today. Will be on news tonight. Love explaining why it's a good thing to help starving people”

4. Be prepared for some fallout: Whether it’s something small or large like killing an elephant, there’s probably going to be some degree of fallout, so do the best you can to minimize how out of control it gets.  Once you lose the trust of your customers, it’s very difficult to ever get back. In GoDaddy’s case, the situation has turned into a nightmare for Parsons and he has lost the trust of its customers and it’s showing—in a BIG way. Individuals are boycotting the hosting site by pulling their accounts. Last Friday, the Humane Society announced that they’re moving its 650 domain names elsewhere.

Other companies are taking full advantage of this opportunity. For example, another Web hosting site, FatCat Servers, is welcoming new customers with their arms wide open with their “No Daddy” campaign. For every new customer that registers or transfers their domain, the company will donate $4.95 to Save the Elephants. Other companies such as ManicaNet and Namecheap are offering similar discounts and making donations when Go Daddy customers transfer. This is a brilliant move by competitors to strike while the iron is hot, and I’ll be curious to see how many accounts are actually shut down when this PR nightmare is all said and done.

5. Do something positive: For Parsons and GoDaddy, the best thing would be to apologize and do something immediately to show that you’re sincerely sorry and were misinformed about the problems occurring in Zimbabwe. Parsons seemed to be concerned with feeding starving people. Perhaps he should conduct a food drive and send the villagers food? In addition, put a strong emphasis on helping organizations and causes and highlight the other good things the company contributes to. For example, Go Daddy Cares is the company’s charity division and supports various organizations to help make a difference in the world.

Things aren’t looking bright for Parsons and Go Daddy and it would be in their best interest to do something about it before the ugliness continues and they lose even more customers. Hopefully this is a lesson to other entrepreneurs not to post a video posing with a huge grin from ear to ear after just shooting an elephant. Didn’t Parsons learn anything from Michael Vick?