So the Prius has a mind of its own and accelerates out of control. Yesterday my blog was highjacked and redirected all visitors to other sites because of a widget I downloaded from Google. Case in point...both failures were delivered by up to now World Class companies. Toyota earned more accolades for quality than any other car company and Google wrote the book on how to build a global quality company. We consumers trusted both companies above all others in their respective areas of expertise. Trusted that is until we experienced a failure.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not equating sticking accelerators that have caused death and destruction to my malware issue. The damage to life and limb from faulty cars is extremely serious. What I would like to discuss is how quickly reputations can change. How instantly Toyota’s seventy years of brand building is wiped out. How two days ago I was singing the praises for Google and today I say how did they let that happen to me? Or another example; how Enron was marked as an evil empire when in reality it was a handful of greedy executives whose bad deeds branded tens of thousands of valued employees and the entire company.
When companies we trust let us down the public’s reaction is usually swift and widespread. We refuse to do business with them. We make them pay for their sins by withholding our dollars. Retribution is meant to be catastrophic and final. Make them pay.
When we lose trust in a company we are done, but when we lose trust in an individual we generally give that person a second chance. In fact, we have built much of our societal values around giving people a second chance. Learn from your mistakes, right?
So, why are we not as forgiving to companies when they make a mistake? What is your opinion? Please post a comment.
