One would think that a record breaking number of recalls in January, endless bad press in February, and a $16.4 million dollar fine by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration would strike a devastating blow to Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), yet TMC has successfully completed a 180 turn around. In fact, TMC has had a reported 41% sales increase for March.
How did they manage that? Baltimore, MD Scion says that recent sales incentives have proven too good to pass up for potential Toyota owners. People are saying bye-bye to the worries of recalls and hello to 0 percent interest and discount lease incentives.
In addition to these sales incentives, Toyota looked to get SMART.
On April 8, 2010, Toyota announced it has established a new SMART business process utilizing existing product engineers, field technical specialists and specially trained technicians to quickly and aggressively investigate customer reports of unintended acceleration in Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles in the United States.
So, what is SMART? It stands for Swift Market Analysis Response Team which is classified as a “rapid-response” team who will “attempt to contact customers within 24 hours of receiving a complaint of unintended acceleration to arrange for a comprehensive on-site vehicle analysis”. Hopefully that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, because that’s the goal and it worked on me!
Toyota’s chief quality officer for North America, Steve St. Angelo, said:
As Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda told Congress in February, we are committed to listening to our customers even more intently and addressing their concerns even more promptly. Our multi-tiered SMART approach is just one of the many steps we are taking to make sure that Toyota sets an even higher standard.
Sounds good enough to me! What do you think?
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