This CEO's Sincere Response To A Complaint Is A Perfect Example Of Good Crisis Management
He even sent a mixture of free products to the person who lodged the complaint!
By John Lim — 26 Oct 2015, 03:37 PM
Handling a PR crisis is never easy. It takes a level of calm and humility. The CEO of Farm Fresh, a dairy produce company in Malaysia seems to understand that concept fully.
On 17 October, founder of Nuffnang, Timothy Tiah wrote an entry on his Dayre - a blogging platform - complaining about the quality of milk from Farm Fresh
He wrote: Super angry. I've been buying this milk for some months now. I guess I like the packaging because we can use it as a water bottle (like in the picture) after we are done. Some time back I had just bought one of these and when I poured it into my cereals and started eating I realized it tasted really funny. So I spit it out and tried it on its own. True enough. The milk had gone bad. Even though I had just bought it and the expiry date was more than a week from then.
dayre.me
He gave the company a benefit of doubt and purchased a new bottle of milk - but it had the same problem of turning sour before the expiry date
"No big deal I thought. Maybe it's just bad luck. Not only did I have to throw away the bad bottle of milk. I also had to throw away my bowl of cereals. Then today it happened again!!! We just bought this milk carton. The expiry date says 21 October 2015 and when my wife had it with her cereals this morning (17 October) it was sour.
Oh, may I reiterate that both times it was bad on the first day that I opened it. I didn't open it and wait more than 3 days to consume it. I also kept it refrigerated the whole time."
dayre.me
Apparently, he wasn't the only who had problems with the quality of milk produced by Farm Fresh. The company posted on Facebook that it will refund customers who were affected by its poor quality.
Hoping to put this case to rest, he told his wife to proceed with refunds when she had the time. A few days later, he received an email from a man named Loi, who happened to be the CEO of the company.
In his email, Loi addressed the difficulty of operating a dairy produce company, saying that a slight mismanagement in the supply chain could be detrimental
"As we are involved in sensitive products, a slight mismanagement along the chains could cause the milk to go bad. Over the years, we received complaints from customers on our Facebook page which I replied personally. To a large extent, I neglected our beautiful ladies (cows) in the farm. While they still produce great milk, we've messed up some of them in the plant."
timothytiah.comHe further pleaded to Timothy not to give up on the company and invited him for a tour to one of the farms
"Dear Timothy Tiah, please don't give up on us. If you see how hard our labour works, you might change your mind. I've attached some pictures of our farms for your viewing pleasure - one in Kota Tinggi and one in Muadzam, Pahang. I'll be glad to invite you to one of our farms."
timothytiah.comTouched by the sincere email, Timothy offered to clarify the incident to his 23,000 followers on Dayre. He also told Looi to donate his replacement milk bottles to an orphanage.
"As a fellow entrepreneur, I can appreciate how you feel. I have made mistakes too in business and I understand the stress that comes with managing this crisis. So here's what I'm going to do to try to help:
1) With your permission, I will post a clarification on my blog and attach the letter you sent me.
2) I will also go back to drinking your milk.
3) As for my refund, don't bother. I can imagine the logistics of doing all your refunds to your other potentially angry customers and I don't want to add to that workload. Instead when this crisis passed, donate my bottles of milk to a nearby orphanage."
A few days later, Loi replied and said he has donated 12 bottles of milk to an orphanage and will be sending a mixture of Farm Fresh products to Timothy's office
Timothy was deeply inspired by Looi's sincerity with dealing the issue - and how he went the extra mile of sending free products and donating to an orphange
"Loi truly inspired me. At a time of crisis, he kept his calm and dealt with tough situations like this with humility and sincerity. Why I say sincere? Because after I had replied him and said I would clarify he need not had gone the extra mile to send me something, or to give 12 bottles to the old folks home instead of the two.
I don’t know if I could have done better than what Loi did. He turned a crisis into an opportunity."
We salute you, Mr Loi! Nothing like a good turnaround of events after a bad encounter with sour milk!
