Everybody's phone is ringing
The morning after a client's incident, enquiries arrive everywhere. A national reporter emails the press office. A trade journalist calls the account director's mobile because they know her. A regional TV producer sends a direct message on X to the client's head of communications. A freelancer rings the client's switchboard and gets transferred to someone in sales.
By lunchtime the agency has responded to some, the client has responded to others, and one journalist has been given the holding statement from the morning while another got the updated statement from 11am. Two enquiries with a 3pm deadline sit unanswered in a personal inbox. The crisis lead asks for a list of every enquiry and what each was told, and three people start compiling it from memory.
Why enquiries scatter
- Journalists contact whoever they know, not the official press office.
- Enquiries come by email, phone, text and social messages, each in a different place.
- Statements change during the day, so the right answer depends on the time.
- Several people respond without seeing each other's replies.
- Deadlines are mentioned in passing and not written anywhere central.
What a messy log costs
Inconsistent answers become a story themselves. A journalist who gets an older statement will write it up, and correcting it later means another conversation. Missed deadlines lead to lines saying the company did not respond. After the incident, the client wants a full account of media handling, and without a log it is reconstructed from inboxes over days.
How we build the enquiry log
- Opening an incident creates a log and a dedicated shared inbox address. Existing press office addresses can forward into it for the duration.
- Emails are parsed into enquiries: journalist, title, question, deadline if stated, and the channel.
- Phone calls and direct messages are logged in seconds from a mobile form, by anyone on the incident team, agency or client.
- Each enquiry is matched to your journalist records, so previous contact and relationship notes show.
- Every enquiry gets an owner and a status, and a board sorts them by deadline, with a warning as deadlines approach.
- The current approved statement and Q&A lines sit at the top of the log. When a response is sent, the version used is recorded against the enquiry.
- When the statement changes, the log lists every journalist who received the earlier version, so the team can decide who to update.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Journalist and title | Links to history and relationship owner |
| Question asked | Shows which lines are needed |
| Deadline | Sorts the board and triggers warnings |
| Owner | One person answers, nobody doubles up |
| Statement version given | Keeps answers consistent and traceable |
The next incident, on one board
The crisis lead opens the incident and forwards the press office address into it. As enquiries arrive, they appear on the board with deadlines. The account director logs the trade journalist's call from her phone in a few taps. The client's head of communications logs the TV producer's message. Each has one owner.
At 11am the statement is updated. The log shows six journalists who received the earlier version. The team decides three need the update, sends it, and the log records it. At the end of the day, the full media handling record exists without anyone compiling it.
When the incident is closed, the log is locked and kept with the incident record, so a later review with the client can go through each enquiry, the line given and the coverage that followed.
Could this be you?
- During incidents, enquiries arrive through several people's phones and inboxes.
- Different journalists have been given different versions of a statement.
- Deadlines have been missed because an enquiry sat in someone's inbox.
- After an incident the enquiry list is rebuilt from memory.
- Client and agency staff respond without seeing each other's replies.