General Mills' Cinnamon Toast Crunch. A man alleges he found shrimp tails in a box of the cereal.
Moment Editorial/Getty ImagesGeneral Mills is the latest organization in a long line of businesses to deal with allegations there is something wrong with one of its products. As reported by The New York Times, this week a man said he found shrimp tails in a box of the company’s Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.
‘While we are still investigating this matter, we can say with confidence that this did not occur at our facility,” Mike Siemienas, a spokesperson for General Mills, told me. ‘We are waiting for the consumer to send us the package to investigate further. Any consumers who notice their cereal box or bag has been tampered with, such as the clear tape that was found in this case, should contact us.”
In the past four years alone, there have been more than 1,500 recalls and safety alerts for products regulated by U.S. Food and Drug Administration—and these are just the ones that have been publicized. Headline-making accusations that products are contaminated, been tampered with, or are unsafe can immediately create a crisis for the companies that make them, the retail outlets that sell them, and the people who endorse and buy them.
What’s At Stake
How organizations respond to any product safety issues can determine how well or poorly a crisis is handled, how quickly the situation is resolved, and the damage to the image, reputation, and bottom line of a business. The speed at which companies respond to crisis situations can be a matter of life and death. Having a crisis plan in place—and testing it at least once a year against various worst-case crisis scenarios—can help ensure business leaders are as prepared as possible for any crisis.
Jane Gideon is a crisis management expert and vice president of communications for Plenty, an indoor farm that delivers greens to grocery stores in California. In her 25+ years of experience, she said she found, “... the key to getting through a crisis is to treat ...customer trust like a house of cards. It takes care and a delicate touch to put together, but can easily crumble with mishandling.”
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Learning From Others
Dr. Rob Britton, who teaches crisis management as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, wished that manufacturers of all kinds—from food to automobiles—borrowed from the best practices of operating companies like airlines.
Britton, who was part of the leadership team at American Airlines that rebuilt the brand after 9/11, said, “Airlines and other transport companies prepare crisis-response plans across a wide range of scenarios, then exercise them regularly to improve performance when a real crisis happens. It’s clear from General Mills’ clumsy handling of this week’s cereal-contamination allegation that they don’t do that.”
Britton added that another best practice is to assess performance after the crisis abates, and use that learning to improve response plans. “Feedback loops are essential to effective crisis management,” he said.
The Real Lesson
Laura Meyers is senior manager of corporate communications at The Bonadio Group, an accounting and auditing firm. She said the situation involving Cinnamon Toast Crunch, “... is more of a lesson in crisis response and reputation management in a digital world than it is in food safety specific communication.”
Common Missteps
She observed that, “... the debacle highlights significant, yet common, missteps companies take when dealing with consumer complaints online. We’ve seen it time and again—someone will send out a negative Tweet about a company, the brand will reply, and the world will ask, ‘Who OK’ed that response?’ Despite years of seeing the repercussions, brands continue to make mistakes when it comes to addressing and resolving claims.
Wrong Place, Wrong Words
Meyers noted that the cereal maker responded to the consumer’s concerns on Twitter via public reply, which allowed “... their conversation to be viewed and reacted to by the entire Twitter-sphere.” In addition, she said the company indicated the consumer “... was mistaken and had no grounds for the complaint.”
Advice For Business Leaders
Meyers recommended keeping the following advice in mind, “... when dealing with crisis response and reputation management online—and where General Mills went wrong.”
Move Fast
Act quickly, but gather as many details as possible before responding.
Go Offline
Always attempt to bring the conversation offline, or at the very least, bring it to a private forum. It’s important to move conversations away from the public eye, not for the sake of secrecy, but to allow for detailed information gathering and discussion of next steps. It’s much easier to have these resulting conversations via phone rather than on social media. Note: even if a conversation is brought to a direct message, remember that everything is ‘screen shot-able.’
Don’t Minimize
Avoid minimizing or dismissing claims made by consumers. We’ve come a long way from “the customer is always right” but that’s not to say brands should come across as dismissive.
Have The Right Priorities
Automated responses have a time and a place, but transparency and sincerity are key. Social media has forced many companies to leverage automated responses and standardized language to keep up with demand to stay on message. However, when a consumer comes to a brand with a serious complaint/inquiry, bouncing back with a blatantly canned response is off-putting.
A Chief Marketing Officer’s Perspective
Lisa Roberts, chief marketing officer at AI software company Yonder, said executives can learn these additional lessons from how General Mills responded to the Cinnamon Toast Crunch crisis.
Play Offense
To ensure you’re quickly and efficiently catching harmful narratives or damaging customer complaints in their earliest stages, invest time and resources into proactively monitoring all corners of the internet, including conversations and narratives that may be relatively low volume.
By ringing the alarm bell to a potential problem as early as possible, you can ensure your brand is developing the appropriate response to prevent a costly crisis and accurately weighing the potential risks.
Work Crisis Planning Into Daily Workflow
Business leaders should regularly practice and hone their crises responses, as well as take their teams through potential scenarios they can anticipate, e.g., a major customer complaint, the integrity of the brand’s products or services is questioned, agenda-driven groups misconstrue the CEO’s statement.
Proactively playing out the trajectory or potential consequence of a crisis on the horizon can ensure business leaders are prepared to respond if/when a similar problem comes to the forefront.
Understand Your Audience
Every brand claims to understand its customers, and when it comes to their age, location, or gender, that may be true. But a true understanding of their audience goes beyond surface-level demographics and requires in-depth analyses of what motivates consumers, how they engage and communicate online, and what topics or ideals they support and oppose.
March 25, 2021 at 05:02PM
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9 Crisis Lessons From General Mills’ Response To Allegation Of Shrimp Tails In Cereal Box - Forbes
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