The Toyota Company

The Toyota Company’s Decision in 2010

The Toyota Company made the right decision in 2010 amid the unintended acceleration recall situation when it chose to send letters to car owners informing them of the upcoming recall. On October 30, 2009, the business, in spite of the unfavorable press it was receiving, gave their actual customers confidence by personalizing their correspondence (Kehr and Michael, 931).

Focus on Customer Safety in Times of Crisis

Despite the public outcry over the Toyota brake issue, the company’s decision to focus on the people it needed to safeguard first was well-considered. Public information during such a crisis may be inaccurate because rivals may hijack the conversation and spread disinformation to their own ends. This proactive move opened the door for the customers to seek clarification through the same means directly from the company instead of depending on information available in public (Austen-Smith et al., 7).

The Role of Media and Toyota’s Response

The Los Angeles Times had consistently been publishing the Toyota crisis on several dates that mostly portrayed the company in a bad light. On December 23, 2009, for example, the paper claimed that the company was hiding defects from customers and regulators over the past decade. Customers needed to access factual information that could only be achieved by the firm engaging directly with the clients and clarifying any info or doubts they have about their products. W. Timothy Coombs admonishes large companies to set out designated websites in the event of a crisis so that it can tell its own story. Toyota just took this a notch higher and opened the communication channel directly to her clients.

Conclusion

Companies must ensure that they have credible interaction with their customers even when there is no cause for alarm. This can come in handy in the case of a crisis to continue dispensing authentic information to their clients.

Works cited

Austen-Smith, David, et al. “Unintended acceleration: Toyota’s recall crisis.” Kellogg School of Management Cases (2017): 1-16.

Kehr, Thomas W., and Michael D. Proctor. “People Pillars: Re‐structuring the Toyota Production System (TPS) House Based on Inadequacies Revealed During the Automotive Recall Crisis.” Quality and Reliability Engineering International 33.4 (2017): 921-930.