Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Toyota Can't Catch a Brake

You may of heard about the recent problems today has been facing lately. I have caught bits and pieces from overhearing the news and seeing a few headlines on the internet. Toyota has been doing 24/7 damage control on recent "brake breakings," that have caused alarm for many customers. For me, I have always known the Japanese to be reliable producers (they may not invent anything-but at least they know how to build something good) so I was rather surprised to see Toyota going through such a crisis. I am a proud owner of a Rav4 and love it.. I am wondering what has gone wrong, but more importantly I'm wondering how Toyota is handling their situation. If Toyota's PR team is managing it anything like the Domino's fiasco, well we have a problem.

Well, at least Toyota took the right steps in their crisis management...but it took them a few pushes and shoves just to get them out into the media. In the early part of 2010, Toyota began a series of recalls that were not paired with answering and consoling customers about their safety. Toyota now has several TV and radio ads announcing their recalls, but are trying to instill faith back into the people. To me, Toyota's only mishap was timing..but timing is everything right? Better now than never.

2 comments:

  1. I can't even begin to imagine the task set out before Toyota's public relations team as soon as these events started happening! Whoever they are, I applaud their efforts in the recent days. I do feel that Toyota has made many good decisions during the recall situation that will help them bounce back. By recalling all of the affected vehicles and through their TV ads (I haven't had a chance to hear their radio ads), I think that they will be able to regain trust among consumers. My sister's car was actually one of the first groups to be recalled and she simply had to get it fixed. Since then, her car has not had any trouble. I think that it is a slow process, but they will eventually bounce back.

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  2. Also, I love the title of this post! Very clever!

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