Zaremba (2010) points out that “crisis is any unanticipated event, incident, situation, or development that has the potential to damage or destroy your organization’s reputation”. (P.234) This definition indicates two attributes of crisis: unexpectedness and destructiveness, so effective communication is crucial to manage a crisis. The Nuance Group, a successful management consulting company, with a reputation of experienced and highly educated consultants, was facing the crisis brought by its great “reputation”. As a consultancy, it’s their profession to market themselves. A glossy brochure with specific introduction of consultants’ information, which is the highlight of the company’s reputation, is a fabulous method to market the company service. However, inaccurate biography caused the sever distrust among its customers and influenced their business severely.
The reasons which caused a so severe crisis were various. I conclude that there were two important factors which led to the crisis so severe.
Widespread and high-speed transmission
Widespread information about the Nuance Group’s fake bios will not only impair their existing clients, but also influence the choice of potential clients. On the one hand, with the development of emerging media such as internet and mobile media, the scope and speed of information transmission increased a lot, which facilitated the range of the transmission of crisis and resulted in extensive damage to the corporation. The existing clients would definitely doubt Nuance’s integrity and reconsider their cooperation. On the other hand, large-scale transmission of brochures carrying fake bios means large-scale potential clients would distrust the Nuance Group and then would refuse their service. Giving out brochures extensively to potential clients and supplying unlimited download PDF file could attract more clients initially. However, with information from fake bios, the good intention was converted into destruction. As a