Responding to Products Recall -- Toyota

Background In 2008, Toyota achieved its long-held goal of becoming the No. 1 carmaker in the world, passing General Motors, which had been the leader since 1931. Shortly after Toyota gained that distinction, global auto sales plunged, leading to a loss for the fiscal year of $4.8 billion, the largest in the company's 72-year history. As Toyota returned to the black in late 2009, its reputation for safety and quality were battered by a series of recalls. The issue of unintended acceleration would lead the company through a bruising gantlet of government investigations, lawsuits from crash victims and one of the heaviest fines ever imposed on a car manufacturer in the United States.1 Toyotas most prevailing threat in regards to social media has been created from the recall scandal. This threat can severely damage the brand as customers and potential customers will be ever more likely to criticize Toyotas faulty products and also the service offered. Research by social media analyst Web trends proposes that 60% of all online mentions of Toyota during the first week of February were made in a negative with key words such as 'recall', 'pedal' and 'fix' were most frequently associated with the brand2. it is the most important threat affecting the entire business. Response team As opportunity will spring from its crisis, Toyota also has the big opportunity to respond to the prevailing recall crisis. And infact they did really well on the responding through social media. On their website, there is a Owners Talk Safety section, which will link to Toyotas safety web site. Also Toyotas external social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages direct costumers to the recall information site page. Furthermore, around Feb, 2010. it created a social-media response room, always staffed with six to eight people monitoring the online conversation and responding at all times. It's answering consumers on its four Facebook pages; it created a Twitter chat with Jim Lentz, Toyota Motor Sales USA president-chief operating officer; and it created two new platforms, one with Digg and the other on Tweetmeme called "Toyota Conversations" to aggregate online chatter and allow Toyota to respond directly Moreover, Toyota has approached online brand loyalists and asked if it could repost their tweets, blog posts and videos on its platforms. Toyota created a series of video interviews
1 2

(Toyota Motor Corporation, 2011) (Toyota launches vehicle recall website as sales tumber, 2010)

with customers, associates at our plants and some dealership personnel to tell those stories proactively on its YouTube channel and other outlets. Those video provide that frontline perspective and an authentic response to some of the issues Toyota are facing right now. Toyota might be telling the public it wants to regain the public trust, but judging from Facebook, it may not have lost it. According to Doug Frisbie, Toyota Motor Sales USA's national social media and marketing integration manager, the automaker has actually grown its Facebook fan base more than 10% since late January, around the time of the marketer's Jan. 21 recall announcement and its Jan. 26 stop-sale date. 3 Recommendations: Despite of the fast, massive responding in the website, Toyota still need to imrove the following in order to restore the companys reputation 1. Toyota needs to be thinking about looking after its existing customers, as they are the ones who will help to move the company forward, This is very important because you can turn a negative customer experience into a positive one by acting quickly to deal with any issues raised though meaningful customer feedback. 2. Toyota need to find what the real problems of unintended accelerations are and make effort to fixed it. Therefore, what they advertised in media sites can comply with their No.1 quality image rather than a Public Relationship technique. 3. Toyota might consider recruiting third party to monitoring and corresponding to the posts in the social media site. It will help create and spread positive messages associated with the Toyota brand. The bloggers could reiterate Toyotas brand promise they could increase their effectiveness in relation to Interaction, Intimacy and Influence. Bloggers who promote the safety of Toyota cars such as government agencies, trade magazines and websites like Car & Driver and Automotive.com and public figures. If Toyota can earn this approval it will provide extra weight to the credibility of the public relations.

(Bush, 2010)

Works Cited
1. Bush, M. (2010, March 01). Social Media: The Cult of Toyota. Retrieved June 13, 2011, from AdvertisingAge: http://adage.com/article/news/social-media-culttoyota/142335/ 2. Toyota launches vehicle recall website as sales tumber. (2010, February 03). Retrieved June 13, 2011, from Brand Republic: http://www.brandrepublic.com/DigitalAM/News/981338/Toyota-launchesvehiclerecall-website-sales-tumble/?DCMP=EMC-Digital-AM-Bulletin 3. Toyota Motor Corporation. (2011, June 13). Retrieved June 13, 2011, from The new york times: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/toyota_motor_corporatio n/index.html