Are you prepared for a PR disaster?

Thanks to the two former employees last week, Dominos has been in the midst of a PR and customer service firestorm. Following the incidents of JetBlue (snowstorm stranded passengers) and Motrin (mommy-gate). According to Emily Bryson York's article in AdWeek, companies have only 24 hours to respond to widespread online complaints.

York writes,

Are you prepared?Richard Levick, president of Levick Strategic Communications, isolates four steps every company should take to prepare for this kind of crisis.

1. Identify your crisis team: investor relations, government relations, public relations, crisis communications, outside lawyers, general counsel, digital communications, human resources, multimedia communications experts and an executive team.

2. Imagine your nightmare scenarios and prepare for them -- make sure you own all the search-engine-optimization keywords, and that lawyers who specialize in class-action suits against major companies don't.

3. Track the blogosphere and other social media. Be connected with the major players and be as responsive as possible.

4. Don't wait. Your response time is only 24 hours.