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Don’t let problems escalate
By Lauren | February 26, 2010
Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s discuss a mistake that even the biggest companies make: letting problems fester and grow until they do serious damage. For today’s example, we need look no further than Toyota Motor Co.
Toyota’s woes have been well-publicized, and investigations continue into what and when the company knew about the unintended acceleration problems plaguing some of its vehicles. Whether Toyota’s cars have been unexpectedly speeding up because of mechanical or electrical problems is not yet clear. What is clear, however, is that Toyota apparently knew it had safety problems for years, but did little or nothing to address them until public outcry reached ridiculous decibel levels. Now, Toyota is facing three major, expensive recalls, state and federal investigations, an avalanche of criticism, and damage to its reputation that it may not survive.
This mess might have been avoided if Toyota had taken customer complaints seriously and acted on them years ago. Instead, the company apparently thought that its cars were too good to fail, blaming the inepitude of the drivers who purchased them. That arrogant inaction gave Toyota’s problems a decade to escalate into a major crisis.
Timely intervention when the situation was more manageable could have saved Toyota a world of problems - and it could save your business, too. Jump on problems before they have a chance to grow.
Topics: Business Ethics, Risk Management, business communications, customer relations, ethics |