Toyota and GM Crisis

I’ve been taught not only by professors, but my parents to always be consistent. Whether that means sticking out a season of softball when I didn’t enjoy playing, sticking to my studies when a class was difficult, or learning about public relations best practices.

One thing Ed Keller and Brad Fay do not accomplish throughout their book, The Face-to-Face Book, is staying consistent. To begin, they were completely opposed to anything relating to the internet. About halfway through the book they claimed that the Internet is OK, but not social media. Now in Chapter 8, the authors (semi) refer to social media as acceptable. I cannot keep up with their changing minds.

 

One case study Keller and Fay shed light upon was the Toyota Motor Corporation crisis. Essentially, Toyota had a product flaw that caused serious customer injury. Toyota’s CEO made a public apology and ceased production for a week. This had me thinking, what has General Motors done (regarding crisis communication) in the last few weeks regarding their car recalls?

To get a personal viewpoint, I talked to my roommate about her car situation. She has a 2006 Chevy Cobalt that has been causing her issues over the last few months. She first heard about the recalls via the news or traditional media. Caia (my roommate) called the dealership she bought the car from and they said they had not heard of specifics the recalls.

Step two: Caia received a letter in the mail in March stating her car was indeed one of the cars on the recall list. So she looked online on GM’s website and found that parts to fix her car would be available on April 15, 2014.

Step three: She waited a week to call the car dealership asking about the part. What did she get? The dealership was short and rude regarding the issue.

The only form of communication Caia received from GM was the letter in March. When I asked Caia if she would ever buy from GM again she said, “Yes, but only because my grandma works there.” So it’s not because of the car quality, it’s because of family purposes.

Even though Caia has not heard much from the company, the CEO of GM, Mary Barra, has released statements and commented on the 13 dates linked back to the car defects. In this CNN article, Barra apologizes for the harm her company has caused.

In conclusion, people take personal offense if they do not get personalized attention during and after a crisis. Word-of-mouth will spiral out of control if customers do not feel as if they’re a priority, as is the case with Caia and her car.

I recommend GM take a closer look at the customers they are putting on the backburner and focus on maintaining the relationships that are (still) standing.

Until next time, stay classy my fellow bloggers.

Candace