The year 2010 saw the automobile biggie Toyota suffer its worse melt down in history. February 2010 recorded more than eight million Toyota cars that were recalled by the company. What started off with sticky floor mats which slid down to the accelerators to faulty pedals, the problems for Toyota kept piling up.
Various blogs, forums, review websites, news websites started hounding Toyota. This was expected but what is commendable is the way Toyota managed its reputation online.
The following points highlight how Toyota used the web to save its reputation.
- Toyota launched a branded channel called Toyota Conversations wherein it aggregated tweets, articles and press releases related to Toyota and responded to their audience on Twitter. Toyota had control on which tweets and articles they wanted to display. They actively removed certain negative mentions to display a less negative sentiment
- Toyota Conversations highlighted a page on Toyota’s website called “Toyota Recall” wherin Toyota provided all information regarding the recall of vehicles and also published videos highlighting Toyota’s high safety standards
- The CEO OF TOYOTA Akio Toyoda gave a public apology to all those who were affected by the faulty parts. Many news channels put up the apology videos on Youtube and these collectively received more than 100,000 views. 1 video showing the CEO crying during the press conference received 17,000 plus views alone
- Toyota published many videos on its branded Youtube Channel which revolved around “Safety” so as to maintain its image and consumer perception
- Top search results for “Toyota Safety” And “Toyota recall” are from the official Toyota Press room. Toyota ensured that the top search results directed viewers to information controlled by them
In our view, Toyota has done a great job in safeguarding its online reputation.
No brand can have control over what is written about them on the web by the press, bloggers, customers and even competitors but it certainly can militate the negative sentiments. Toyota did this well using platform’s such as Twitter, Youtube and Online Press Releases.
Kudos to Toyota from team Gozoop.
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I am a proud owner of a Toyota Prius!
I did have a few glitches before my purchase and didn’t know whom to approach since everyone had a negative opinion about the Toyota cars post the recall phase. However I found Prius’s Fan page on Facebook very helpful, the admins were employees of Toyota themselves. They really helped me out with my questions and patiently attended to them, we openly discussed there with other fans giving me their feedback. Awesome brand managerial skills I must say.
BRAVO TOYOTA INDEED!!
I really hope Toyota pulls out of this, there stock keeps dropping, does anyone here have Toyota stock?
[...] many of the angry Toyota users posted furious comments on Facebook and Twitter. But these were handled in a very nice way by the Toyota administrators [...]
[...] By simply being more answerable. (Take a cue from Toyota) [...]
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