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Product Recall

GoCrisis has been activated by our European Manufacturing client for a large product recall involving a faulty appliance. The product was a high-end appliance and the recall affected millions of people around the word. GoCrisis responded in an Asia Pacific market, with more than 200,000 affected customers.

Setting the Scene

Product recalls are increasing particularly due to the growing complexity of leaner, global supply chains, as well as tougher regulations. Several high-profile recalls and rising consumer expectation (perpetuated by social media) around product quality and safety, has seen many countries implementing much stricter product safety laws. (https://www.agcs.allianz.com/news-and-insights/expert-risk-articles/product-recall-drivers-and-trends.html)

Organisations’ most immediate concern lies with limiting the financial and reputational costs, and regulatory penalties. To limit this potential damage, organisations must act quickly.

There are several aspects to consider:

• Reporting the fault to authorities. A recall that affects people in different countries have added complexities when it comes to complying with the different regulations. There may also be large regulatory penalties following the incorrect actions after becoming aware of a product issue.
• Rapidly setting up the organisation’s response efforts: a website with important updates, legal specialists to assess and mitigate the liability, call centres to provide information and safety guidelines to customers, information regarding the investigation and/or refunds and returns.
• Investigating the issue, which may include outside forensic expertise
• Reputational impact to the organisation
• Legal repercussions and potential compensations

What happened?

A major European Manufacturer notified GoCrisis of a voluntary recall after reports of safety concerns. There was a social media outrage as it was a high-end appliance potentially causing damage and injury. Graphic images were posted of some of the events, causing great concern to the organisation.

What steps did the manufacturer take?

• The manufacturer notified all the relevant regulators in the respective jurisdictions
• The manufacturer immediately commenced an internal and independent investigation to assess all the technical aspects of the product and potential causes.
• A safety notice was immediately published and sent to all customers.
• Due to the high-end customer service provided by the company, most customer data were available which made outbound communications much easier.
• GoCrisis was activated to provide a toll-free enquiry lines across time zones and different countries, social media, crisis communications and logistical support.

How did GoCrisis help

GoCrisis was engaged to assist with the GoCrisis Contact Centre (GoCC) Services to provide individuals with any additional information they would require. We activated toll-free numbers, deployed our global call centre, social media and email agents and assisted with preparing FAQ’s for agents to use on the different platforms.

Toll-free enquiry lines were set up and numbers published for concerned customers to contact the organisation. GoCrisis represented both the manufacturer and the distributor. The GoCC Agents were tasked to assist callers, by providing information and precautionary measures to take when using the appliance.

GoCrisis provided teams to monitor and address individual queries posted on the various social media platforms.

GoCrisis provided logistical support in sending replacement parts to all customers, instructions and legally required communications.

Daily reports with detailed feedback on all activities were provided to the manufacturer, including areas of concern and possible escalations.

The service was concluded successfully after a period of several months. The client was provided with a close-out report including all voice recordings and other mail and email interactions for future reference.