24hr crisis line? What 24hr crisis line?

The woefully poor Bell Pottinger Group website makes a point about highlighting the group’s tip-top crisis management expertise.

It even goes so far as to offer prospects in need a 24hr Issues and Crisis telephone number (020 7861 3290).

At 22:49 tonight we had a crisis that only a large corporate PR company that we’d never worked with before could solve.

So we called the 24hr Issues and Crisis line....

The call went unanswered. 40 rings. Not even a recorded message giving us someone’s mobile number.

Appropriately, we called while Channel 4 was showing Lost. Which, had we actually been a company in desperate need of PR support, we still would be.