I was having a conversation the other day about Toyota and their latest round of recalls. The person I was chatting with wondered if Toyota’s reputation would be negatively affected by the fact they had to recall millions more of their vehicles.
My thoughts are that no, it won’t. Why won’t it? They put out an unsafe product and people should be concerned about purchasing from them in the future, right? Or not.
Toyota’s response was to issue a voluntary recall, educate people on what they should do in the event of an unwanted acceleration and suspend delivery of models that may have been affected. In addition, on the Toyota website, they answered the top 10 questions people had, and outlined their plan to fix the problem. Going forward, Toyota says it is making “brake override” – a system that cuts engine power to the wheels as soon as the brake pedal is pressed – standard equipment on all of its cars.
You see, history has shown that it isn’t necessarily the crisis that will ruin a reputation; it is the response to that crisis.
If this wasn’t the case, then the Tylenol name should be associated with poison and death. After the cyanide poisonings of 1982, why isn’t it? Because in reaction to the crisis, Tylenol immediately recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol and sucked up the $100 million dollar loss. They also stopped all advertising of the product. Because they put people’s safety before their bottom line, they earned the public’s trust. The message was sent that they were a company that could be counted on to do the right thing.
In contrast, in the fall of 2009 the Alberta government decided to open up H1N1 vaccinations to the general public without giving priority to those considered high risk. When there was a subsequent vaccine shortage, the public was outraged.
Although the government quickly re-grouped and put a new plan in place that gave priority to high risk people, the official response was that they had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t their fault. They couldn’t have known there was going to be a shortage. They knew what they were doing. The public didn’t buy it and became infuriated because no one took responsibility. Will the Alberta public have faith and trust in the government to handle this better next time? Not likely.
As my momma always told me when I was growing up – you can’t always control the situation, but you can control how you respond to it.
Toyota executives are currently testifying before Congress about the safety issues that have led to the recall of millions of vehicles. They insist that “We are confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles.”