What are the first steps after detecting a reputation crisis?

Crisis response sequence:

Step 1: Assess severity

How bad is the impact?

Which providers/segments affected?

Is it getting worse?

Step 2: Stop the bleeding

Pause high-risk or high-volume sends

Continue critical transactional if possible

Isolate affected sending streams

Step 3: Preserve evidence

Save logs, headers, bounce data

Screenshot postmaster tools

Document timeline

Step 4: Notify stakeholders

Inform relevant teams

Set expectations for timeline

Step 5: Begin diagnosis

Systematic investigation

Identify root cause before implementing fixes

Sound the alarm, stop the damage, record the evidence, inform the crew, then investigate.