Running a recall is never easy, but it’s not made any easier by a global novel coronavirus pandemic. Non-essential businesses are locked down across the country. Those that are open and running may be tasked to help in the fight instead of regular business. Ford, for example, is using its manufacturing equipment to turn its seat ventilation fans into respirators for hospitals around the country.
But Ford is also dealing with another issue during the covid-19 lockdown – over 55,000 vehicles are being recalled due to a transmission problem that may be shifting vehicles into the wrong gear. Another 600,166 vehicles were already being recalled in December 2019, and another 1.2 million SUVs were recalled that June. How does the company keep up with all these recalls during the covid-19 pandemic?
Let’s take a look inside an organized recall management process using Trievr Recall’s unique platform.
Recalling During the Coronavirus
This worldwide outbreak raises a lot of questions for businesses well beyond Ford. In fact, supply chain continuity is becoming a major focal point in the U.S. response. The U.S. National Guard was activated by both the President and Governors of multiple states like New York and Arizona. In these states, the Guard is used to reinforce the supply chain integrity and security.
However, some businesses are still finding issues, in which case FEMA’s National Business Emergency Operations Center kicks in. This 24/7 operation is ensuring supply chains run during the coronavirus lockdown, but there’s still a chance for contaminated or defective products to be recalled. The FDA is clear that there’s currently no evidence of covid-19 being transmitted through food or packaging, so no recall is planned because of the virus spread.
If you have to perform a recall anyway, you may find it easier to reach people with everyone stuck at home. Here’s a general idea of what the recall process looks like:
1. Recall Planning
The first step to a recall is the planning stage. This is where you set aside all the resources that will be needed for the recall. It’s also when you should contact Trievr to get started with your recall management solution. Trievr is a SaaS-based recall management solution that scales with your recall. That means it can handle the multiple recalls affecting a company like Ford then disappear when it’s no longer needed. You pay for only what you need.
Once you have everything planned for the recall, it’s time to execute. Let’s see what the recall process looks like.
2. Conducting the Recall
Conducting the recall is a multi-step process. You must notify customer, track responses, and coordinate follow-ups as needed. In addition, there are often government reporting regulations, which we’ll explain further in the next section. Keeping track of everything is a complicated endeavor without an automated platform like Trievr. Manual processes lead to all sorts of problems.
It’s easy for your staff to let things slip through the cracks. That’s why the government requires strict reporting of any recall situations to ensure they’re executed completely and accurately. Trievr manages each step of the recall out the box, and you can customize it to handle any details you’d like. It can even provide a support staff to answer customer or staff questions 24/7.
3. Recall Reporting
On top of everything you’re doing, you need to keep the government regulators in the loop, whether that’s the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, or whomever else. Providing accurate reporting is crucial to completing the recall without facing further punitive damages, including fines and worse. Not only do you need to provide it externally, but internal management reviews of recall reporting should be a daily habit.
With Trievr Recall Management, real-time reporting is available at the push of a button. Both a quick overview and deep-dive reporting can show where everyone is at in the process of multiple recalls. It’s all done without interrupting the actual recall process.
4. Post-Recall Follow Up
Once the recall is done, there’s still more work to do. Your company needs to restore its brand image. It needs to communicate the completion with the government and follow up on any other actionable items to satisfy them. It needs to speak to customers and reassure them that your brand still stands with them. These are important statements to make.
With Trievr, you can complete your entire recall process and then simply place your subscription on hold until you need it again. It’s an intuitive system that can scale up or down with you.
Covid-19 is changing lives around the world, but it’s not changing the fact that companies should be depended on to provide quality products and services. You can solidify your company’s brand relationship with its customers by effectively completing your recall during the coronavirus epidemic using Trievr Recall Management.