Customer satisfaction with the reference of Toyota hybrid recall Customer satisfaction is an important and respected product of efficient

marketing and communication with customers. The main aim of business is to retain satisfied customers. Growing customer satisfaction provides higher profitability in future as well as low cost concerned with substandard goods and services. The future profitability of a companys depends more on customer satisfaction as well as number of retained customers. Companies consider their revenue producing customers as the perfect asset (Edward C. Malthouse, 2003). There is a great relationship between the expectation and perceived quality of a service so, the level of customer satisfaction can be analyzed and measured in a lot of different ways. The automobile companies should try hard to satisfy and develop customer satisfaction by ensuring them that the vehicle they are going to use is produced according to their requirement by keeping their safety measures in mind. Communication plays a vital role in an organization to solve the issues. Where there will be effective communication between company and customers, there will be no existence of problem particularly related to customer dissatisfaction of distrust. Because when people will freely communicate their issues/concerns with company then the chances of understanding among them will increase and they will become more satisfied. This report is focusing on the Toyota hybrid car recall due to brake failure problem. The brands of the companies are fragile in nature because it represents that what perception the customers have about the company and what they say about companys product and performance. Toyota has been operating in automobile industry since a long time and offering quality products so it has attached millions of customers just because of the quality it has been providing in its vehicles as well as the its image that have brought it to the peak of automobile industry. The high quality standards of Toyota Company define its safety standards and this is the reason there are a lot of

people who purchase its cars just because of safety reasons. But, since 2001, Toyota has started neglecting their problem and because of saving money they did not recall hybrid cars earlier, which led them towards unfavorable consequences and feedback from the customers. The trustworthiness, dependability of a brand is considerably imperative for all customers. The recall of hybrid car has not only affected the companys economy but also badly affected the economic situation of the country. Recall of millions of cars around the world has affected the Japanese economy particularly sales and manufacturing of the automobiles. The reputation of Toyota in the minds of customers is safety automobiles which is reliable in terms of quality, dependability and safety. Because of the recall occurred in 2008, Toyota brought about considerable changes in the car in order to guarantee the approach of highly expensive safety focused company. Toyota Company is very much responsive towards its customers and takes quick actions in order to guarantee that the car provided to them is of best quality and in safe condition. The recall can adversely impact the overall image of the company. This Myth of Toyota was extremely impaired by the disturbance instigated by the hybrid car recalls. Even though the evidences are not identified yet, certain opponents blame Toyota of not using proper procedures in spite of being responsive to the imperfections and the deceptive reports. In the automobile industry, a higher reputation has greater effect on both the prices of first hand cars and second hand cars. Toyota is looking forward to improve and implement its company-wise quality management strategy. The Toyota Company believes that the safety of their customers is the first priority and they focus on it by offering quality vehicles in affordable prices. Moreover, product price comes at second priority while volume and revenues comes at third priority.

customer satisfaction and quality is the major concern because it may directly impact the companys performance, sales and profit if customer turnover increases. Toyota Company is striving a lot to increase the customer satisfaction in order to keep their existing customers instead of allocating extra resources to hunt new customers. The statement that it costs around five to eight times more for getting new customers instead of holding the old ones. And this is the key to understand the motivation toward benchmarking as well as pursuing customer satisfaction. Measurement of customer satisfaction is comparatively new concept for the companies which have been concentrating completely on the income statements as well as balance sheets. The organizations now identified that new global financial system has transformed a lot of things for a long period of time. Now Toyota Corporation has to ensure its safety measures to the customers. Customer satisfaction is the customers state of mind regarding the company when their expectations have been fulfilled by the products or service offered by the company. The attainment of customer satisfaction leads to the reliability and repurchase of the product. There are a lot of significant repercussions about customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is an individual, non-quantitative state; the measurement will not be particular and will need test group along with statistical analysis. The measurement of customer satisfaction should be carried out with a consideration of the gap between the expectations of customers and quality performance discernments. Toyota Corporation is focusing on higher implementation of Customer Relationship Management after the hybrid car recall issue. Implementation of customer relationship management is necessary in almost all companies and they cannot deny this fact. For this purpose Toyota is also required to completely understand the importance of managing relationships with customers in order to retain them before they face customer turnover or

decline in the profits. For the successful implementation of the CRM certain rules and steps must be kept in mind. There is said to be a significant relationship between managing customers and marketing of the products. The collaboration of managing customers with marketing basically helps the enterprise in identifying and targeting potential clients. This helps in generating leads for the sales team. Presently the most successful companies are the ones that have been dealing with their customers on a more personal level by giving extra attention. The company like Toyota Motors has to follow efficient marketing and customer relationship strategies in order to retain them and satisfy them that Toyotas vehicles are safe to drive or ride on. There is a prevalent faith that companies must follow quality in both consumer satisfaction and productivity. On the other hand, there is purpose to have faith in these two goals are not always well-matched. If an organization recovers the efficiency by downscaling, it can accomplish an upturn in productivity in the shorter time period; however impending profitability can be endangered if customer satisfaction is extremely reliant on the determinations of employees. If so, there are impending compromises between customer satisfaction and productivity for businesses as diverse as different industries. It is also important to emphasize that this is a problem which is not merely important at the moment, but indeed it will become even more crucial in the future. As the demand of cars will continue and global markets turn out to be gradually competitive, the significance of customer satisfaction will also rise. In order to participate in such state of affairs, companies should strike the accurate balance between their determinations to compete proficiently and their efforts to compete meritoriously. Even though customer satisfaction is progressively understood as a significant objective for lots of businesses, the degree to which it is taken seriously is wide-

ranging, its measurement is difficult and the defined nature of its influence on financial performance and stockholder value keep on the matter of discussion. While the presence of a relationship between customer satisfaction and organizational performance is evidently an essential principle of marketing theory, assessing the presence, environment and strong point of this association at organizational level has showed challenging. Several recommendations have also been given in the research report that would help in controlling such problem in future. In order to manage quality, the company needs to implement effective strategies. Leaders must take responsibility for preparing, reviewing and monitoring the policy and also take part in regular improvements of it and ensure it is understood at all levels of the organization. Effective leadership starts with, followed by strategy which is translated into actions. The five values for effective leadership styles are: Developing and publishing corporate beliefs, values and objectives, Personal involvement and acting as role models for a culture of total quality, Developing clear and effective strategies and supporting plans for achieving goals and objectives, Improving management system and Motivating, communicating and supporting people and encouraging effective employee participation. Six sigma approaches should be used to get the best quality work because six sigma approaches ensures that there are no defect in the product and it is quality product. First of all training related to total quality management should be given to the employees. Team should be created in order to get more efficient work as well as increase employees understanding Processes, people, management systems and performance measurement Everything we do is a Process, which is the transformation of a set of inputs, which can include action, methods and

operations, into the desired outputs, which satisfy the customers needs and expectations. In each area or function within an organization there will be many processes taking place, and each can be analyzed by an examination of the inputs and outputs to determine the action necessary to improve quality. In every organization there are some very large processes, which are groups of smaller processes, called key or core business processes. These must be carried out well if an organization is to achieve its mission and objectives. Efficient and skilled human resource is the most important method to achieve the completion of the product and satisfy customers needs. Companies are also looking for motivated, skilled and competent employees, who can improve their productivity and bring about improvement in quality management system. Efficient human resource management is one of the most important methods for improving the business management and production processes. It is also said that the management of human resource is positively linked with acquiring operational performance and these practices are considerably associated with the satisfaction of the customers. Quality does no implemented of its own it requires complete dedication and attention of management and all employees working in an organization and it needs systematic approach. Total quality management is an integrated system and methodology that help an organization to design, produce service and quality product which are most acceptable and suitable for a customer. It is a duty of all workers working in company should do their task in an ethical manner. One major category is substandard work, including defective products, substandard services, poor designs, substandard parts and raw material. When a person is having a knowledge of all those thing and then unable to correct them or does not report them in timely manner is an unethical way which effects the performance and reputation of an organization badly because firstly it

increases the cost of product and decreases productivity, increases accident rates among employees and customers and increases liability cost.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/14/toyota-recall.html

Edward C. Malthouse, J. L. (2003, 07). Customer Satisfaction Across Organizational Units. Retrieved 09 03, 2012, from http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/customersatisfaction.pdf