Antidote Sought for Recall Fatigue
In a world where people resent being told what to do and buy, many now apparently resent being told to return items purchased that have been found to be flawed. Persuading the public to act on product recalls has become increasingly fraught as the number of recalls increases, according to a report in The Washington Post.
Companies instigating food recalls just for the month of June included McDonald's, Kellogg's and Campbell. In addition, seven companies recalled two million cribs.
Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food protection at the Food and Drug Administration, is concerned because numbers are "steadily going up, and it's difficult for us to get the word out without over-saturating consumers."
"The national recall system that's in place now just doesn't work," Craig Wilson, assistant vice president for quality assurance and food safety at Costco, told the Post. "We call it the Chicken Little syndrome. If you keep shouting at the wind -- 'The sky is falling! The sky is falling!' -- people literally become immune to the message."
Indeed, the newspaper pointed to a recent study found that 12 percent of Americans who knew they had recalled food at home ate it anyway.
Mr. Wilson believes retailers can do the job most efficiently. Using membership details, they can trace each and every purchaser of any recalled item. Similarly, nearly 50 percent of Toyota owners, traced through their registration details, brought their cars in for adjustments.
Getting the message across is made more difficult by a combination of people believing "it can't happen to me" and frustration at being told what to do. Reaching the public, and convincing them to act, is a challenge being met by government with the website www.recalls.gov, email alerts and, most recently, a smartphone application so recalls could be checked while shopping.
Mr. Wilson believes the federal government should follow Costco's lead, requiring all merchants to follow a similar model, "provided customer data are used only for safety recalls." To an extent, this is being instituted by a new federal law. Manufacturers of "durable toddler and baby items -- cribs, high chairs and bathtubs, among them" must now include registration cards with those products. Previously, only manufacturers of child car seats were required to provide them.
Even with registrations and the ability to track purchases through credit and loyalty cards, it isn't always possible to reach everyone. Insistence on even more product registration could cause more resentment.
Discussion Questions: What can be done to minimize risks associated with consumers tuning out recall messages? What private or public entity or entities are in the best position to manage recall communications and response?
[Author's commentary] It's a sad fact that in an imperfect world dependent on consumers consuming, an infinite number of unknown unknowns prevents perfect prevention of problems. Product recall, after the event, is perpetually inevitable.