Whether you are experiencing a product recall or seeking to minimize your recall risk, following these best practices can be helpful from planning through execution. These best practices are a  combination of industry recommendations and the lessons we’ve learned firsthand managing many of the highest profile, highest volume and highest risk recalls of recent years. This experience is imbedded within our processes to ensure every stage of every recall is executed in a manner that minimizes negative impact on your customers and your brand equity.

1. A detailed Recall Management Plan or Protocol, which includes Mock Recalls, will ensure that an actual recall event is handled with the best interests of your customers and your company in mind.
2. A Recall ‘Point Person’ and Recall Team should be established prior to the recall event.  Cell phone numbers and back-up personnel should be included in the Recall Team Roster.
3. Notification to customers and consumers must be clear and concise and should communicate the seriousness of the recall.  Industry notification should occur simultaneously to all distribution channels. Notification templates can help speed the notification process.
4. Business Reply Cards are a highly effective means of documenting receipt of notification.
5. Call Center staff must be trained quickly to field inquiries appropriately from customers and consumers.
6. Product retrieval should be executed in a manner that has minimal impact on stores, Distribution Centers and consumers.  Dedicated resources should be used if product is being removed from store shelves.  In most cases, use of a third-party rather than broker network ensures the most expedient execution. 
7. Payment/credit should be issued quickly and accurately.  (Establish upfront whether the payment/credit will be based upon claims or actual product received.)
8. Replacement product must be available to customers immediately.  Often, a coupon for free or reduced-cost product helps retain customer loyalty/confidence.
9. Product disposition should be managed by a reverse logistics facility equipped with an automated processing system.  Product destruction must be handled in a cost effective and regulatory compliant manner.
10. Reporting must be accessible and updated on a daily basis, preferably Web-based. 

Share your thoughts with us by leaving your comments on our blog or contact us at cls.solutions@inmar.com  for more information about our recall management solutions.

 

Tags: Recalls

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.