• what happens when one of the world’s most trusted car companies hits trouble
• and how their social media response (or lack of) impacted their brand

When it emerged that a batch of Toyota Prius cars had a fundamental engineering error causing breaks to fail, a major recall was in need. For the company, which is one of the most trusted car brands in the world, it proved to be a huge lesson in social media participation – and how damaging a lack of response online can be.

As Thomas Power explains, companies which lack the experience to know that fixing a customer’s problem quickly and happily will not only solve the fundamental problem but will also show that they are a business that puts customers first. And the lack of speed in response is where Toyota failed,

“you could ring up those people and you could exchange that car in 48 hours and it would cost you the cost of a car, $20,000, $30,000. They let it run and they let it run and they let it run….. It's got completely out of control. It might only be 50 cars, and if it is, fix them. Follow the conversation on Twitter, listen, fix, pick up the phone, fix. It's not difficult”

For more advice on social media for business, watch this show.

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