Strategy and communications

How incidents and product recalls can have a positive impact on your brand and business

Developing and communicating an effective strategy to create positive outcomes for your business

Communications without robust assessment and a well thought out strategy has no substance and, particularly with the rapid rise of social media, today’s consumer will see right through it.

Companies that develop and communicate an effective response strategy can leave a positive impact on their business and brands – they make lemonade from the crisis lemons they’ve been handed!

In this course you will discover some easy to use management guides and tools for creating a well thought out response strategy and using that strategy to develop communications that are meaningful and designed to engage and build relationships with your key stakeholders – including customers and consumers.

In addition, to more general response strategy, you will also discover some specific considerations for product recalls. Likewise, in addition to key principles of communications in any type of incident, you will discover some specific guidance for product recall communications. 

What you get:

The units in this course include:

  • Developing an effective response strategy – using your assessment to manage concerns and expectations
  • Creating a product recall strategy and action plan that meets the requirements of regulators but also provides guidance to your team
  • Effective incident communications and the importance of a social media plan
  • Recall communications – improving recall response through effective recall communications


You will also receive:

  • Downloadable transcripts of each unit so you can follow along or print out and read later
  • All the worksheets, checklists & cheat sheets you need to implement these important tools in your program
  • Customisable sections of your incident management, product recall and crisis prevention plan – create your plan as you go! 
  • Access to private discussion forum to ask questions and discuss challenges with your instructor and peers

All of our courses include

  • Checklists & worksheets

    All the checklists, cheat sheets, guides and worksheets you need to apply the course materials.

  • Plan Template

    Customisable sections of your incident management and crisis prevention plan - you create your plan as you go!

  • Transcripts

    Full transcripts of video lessons so you can follow along or download and read later.

  • Discussion Forums

    Ask questions and discuss course materials with your instructor and peers

Course curriculum

Your instructor

  • Steve Hather

    Product Recall & Crisis Management Trainer, Consultant and Coach

    Steve Hather

    Steve Hather has been helping clients prevent and manage incidents and recalls for over 25 years working with some of the worlds best known brands through to small businesses. 

    Steve was the chief architect of The Coca-Cola Company's global Incident Management and Crisis Resolution (IMCR) program now operating in over 100 countries around the world. 

    Steve was a co-author of the international and Australian standards for product recall (AS/ISO 10393) and product safety (AS/ISO 10377). 

Investment in protecting your brand:

Enrol Now

A small investment in time and money could help you prevent an incident or product recall escalating into a crisis!

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FAQ

  • How long does it take?

    This course should take about an hour to work through. In addition, we provide checklists and worksheets that we recommend you discuss with your team. Also, you will find a section of your plan template that you should customise for your business.

  • It's not really my job to manage a crisis. Is this course for me?

    It is often the quality manager or operations manager that is responsible for managing a product recall but as incidents escalate towards a crisis, it is often the communications manager, brand manager, marketing or even the CEO that take over. The fact is that a lot of people have an important functional role to play. The point of this course however is to focus on the overall process that manages both the technical side of incidents and the concerns and expectations of key stakeholders. This course is focussed on that process, not any one functional role. We have incident coordinators that are quality managers, operations managers, marketing managers, communications managers, HR managers, CFO's, risk managers .. The focus of our courses are on the process and building your skills to lead that process.

  • Do you offer discounts for multiple enrolments from the same company?

    Absolutely! We encourage companies to have more than one incident coordinator and have multiple members of the incident management team familiar with the tools and processes we teach. We therefore offer discounts to the second and subsequent enrolments from the same company. Please contact us at [email protected] to get a discount coupon before you enrol your second and subsequent people.

  • You’re an Australian company. What do you know about my country?

    About 95% of our program applies to any food or consumer goods industry in any country. It is also based on International Standards, such as the International Standard for Product Recall. Our focus is on good process and leadership skills. For the small amount of our course that is not directly applicable – mostly around regulatory requirements, we provide specific materials for selected countries that we are adding to all the time. If you have questions specific to your country, we can discuss them in our discussion forums or put you in touch with our partners based in the US, the UK and Hong Kong who have collectively worked in most countries in the world!

  • Why are your fees in US dollars?

    We support managers in many different countries. The universal currency in international business is the US dollar so rather than having multiple prices, we have one price for each service. If US dollars is an issue for you, please contact us directly and we will try to help you resolve the problem.

  • Is GST included?

    As an Australian-based company, we are obliged to charge GST when we deliver a service to someone based in Australia. When we detect an enrolment from someone resident in Australia, we send 10% to the tax department which we can later reconcile with them. For Australian residents, GST is included. For other countries, we are not obliged to charge taxes as far as we are aware as we have no way of reconciling that with the tax departments of other countries. One day someone will figure out a way of doing business globally. Until that day, we'll stick with what we have been told!

  • Do you offer refunds?

    We guarantee that the program that we provide will meet any national or international standard. If a regulatory authority or credible agency of any kind finds aspects of our program do not comply, we guarantee to make it compliant or we will give you your money back. In addition, if you complete this course, complete all the worksheets and sections of the plan template and do not believe it will better assist you manage an incident or a product recall, please speak to us about that. Our objective is to help you create a program that is useful and if we can't, we'll give you your money back. If for some reason, we cannot provide you with the course materials as described because of a problem on our side and cannot resolve it within a reasonable amount of time, we will give you your money back. For any other issues, please contact us and ask us to help resolve the problem.

  • Will this work for a food company?

    Absolutely. From a product recall perspective, although the international standard for product recall was not written specifically for food, every part of that standard - and this training, is applicable to food companies. As a co-author of that standard, Steve Hather our Director made sure that the standard was applicable to all food and consumer goods companies. More broadly, this program looks at incidents and crises and not just product recalls - it is an integrated process from identifying incidents right through to managing a response and restoring the business. This process is universally applicable to any food or consumer goods manufacturer, distributor or retailer.