Odwalla Incorporate is understood for high quality items and it takes pride in the way the juices are made. However, with E. coli crisis it has ended up being very difficult to preserve that standard unless Odwalla creates a correct method to counter the impact. I will assist you design an interaction strategy for each stakeholder to emerge from this crisis, restore loyalty and improve brand name image.
Odwalla should take full ownership of this crisis and interact to its stakeholders about the recall process, quality control policies and steps taken to resolve the issue.
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The timing and the procedure is incredibly essential to communicate effectively. Below are the list of crucial problems and the interaction techniques for each stakeholder that will help make it through this crisis.
Key Problems
Some of the essential issues that Odwalla face since of the E. coli breakout are:
Determining communication method to react in the crisis
Recognizing pasteurizing methods to keep the same taste and quality
Maintaining present core proficiency-- use of minimal production procedures to deliver remarkable taste and nutritional values
Researching negative effects of adding chlorine, as recommended by a quality control supervisor
Identifying methods to supply safe products in future
Recognizing ways to maintain the customer loyalty
Identifying strategy to regain stakeholders' faith
Handling claims from affected consumers
These issues will affect the business's future service operations.
The following are the communication methods for the 9 crucial Odwalla stakeholders-- the impacted clients, the public, the employees, the crisis management committee, the distributors, the sellers, the suppliers, the authorities, and the shareholders/investors.
Affected Customers
Apologize immediately and take full responsibility for the crisis to the affected consumers by contacting them by phone or paying a visit
Guarantee appropriate measures will be taken to fix the issue
Send condolences letters to all consumers who are affected by consuming the Odwalla juice and compensate them for medical costs and hardship
Public
Launch TV, Radio and Internet advertisements to inform everybody about the crisis and seek apology
Regain consumer’s confidence by assuring that this issue will be resolved soon
Arrange factory tours for public assurance
Employees
Call in for all-employee meeting to explain the crisis and ask employees for ideas to pasteurize the products by maintaining same taste
Send out a memo to all employees requesting them to contact crisis management committee with ideas and inquiries
Instruct all employees to direct any questions or inquiries from media to Internal communication department
Crisis Management Committee
Identify the batch numbers of the affected products
Quarantine all the affected products
Develop the recovery plan and review with officials before implementation
Distributors
Send memos to distributors with batch numbers and ask them to recall the products and freeze any supply going to the retailer
Tell distributors to dispose all the products matching the batch numbers given to them
Retailers
Send memos to retailers with batch number and ask them to recall the affected products.
Work with retailers for any customer re-funds requests
Suppliers
Suspend receiving of all the supplies from the suppliers
Ask suppliers to look for E. coli in their supplies and urge them to take appropriate actions
Discuss with supplier for ideas and methods to avoid any contamination even before the products get to Odwalla facility
Officials
Communicate openly with the health agencies and law officials by cooperating with the investigation process
Explain the recovery plan developed by crisis management committee
Get certified for the process from the health agencies
Shareholders/Investors
Call for immediate Board of director meeting and explain the crisis, recovery plan and cost of fixing the crisis
Next Step
Odwalla must take immediate action to avoid damage to customer’s confidence level and lose faith in stakeholders. In order to resolve the issue quickly Odwalla must take following important steps:
Identify the contaminated batch numbers
Quarantine the contaminated products
Communicate with all stakeholders
Find the root-cause of contamination
Implement the solution from root-cause analysis
Get approval from health agencies
Keep consumers updated via advertisements – TV, Radio, Newspapers and Flyers
Organize factory tour for customer satisfaction
Final Words
Odwalla must communicate immediately by enforcing the communication strategies. The consequences for not communicating effectively are worse and will affect from losing customers to long lawsuits and filing bankruptcy. It will be very challenging to find a solution that will maintain the same taste and not to have pasteurized the products. However, you will find smart and effective ways of communicating with stakeholders in this memo that will not only help Odwalla regain the lost glory but also avoid any adverse implications.
With every Core Competencies, there are rewards and crisis. Odwalla must embrace this crisis as a lesson learned and use this experience to come up with new tools and technologies for production process and live up to its vision:
“Odwalla’s vision has always been to nourish people everywhere with the ineffably honest art and rhythm of nature’s offerings. We live on the principle of respect for our consumers who rely on us for consistent quality in taste and nourishment and respect for the earth on which we rely for holistic nourishment”
I would like you to consider my communication strategies and be calm and patient in handling the crisis. Please feel free to contact me for any questions you may have.
Updated: Nov 20, 2023
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Odwalla Stakeholder Communication Strategies. (2016, Apr 11). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/odwalla-incorporate-essay