Marketing’s Vital Role in Product Recall Management: Innovating Solutions Amidst Risks

In the vast field of product management, the challenges of regulatory compliance, safety risks, and product recalls are ever-present and unavoidable. Product recalls are a widespread problem across all industries. The prevalence of product defects and safety concerns has increased significantly in recent years and is expected to continue to increase in the foreseeable future. However, managing product recalls is associated with risks and challenges that can negatively impact financial and non-financial performance and have severe legal consequences. Product recall management tends to focus on technical and legal issues, trying to minimize public awareness instead of considering the customer experience, which also leads to greater long-term reputation damage and customer dissatisfaction. Above all, we propose a new customer-centric strategy to improve product recall management, which puts the customer in a leading role during product-harm crisis. By integrating the product recall management cycle into the traditional customer journey map, we develop a new customer journey map which aligns the product recall management process with the customer experience. With the integration of both perspectives, the new customer journey map provides a comprehensive view of the product recall process, customer behavior, and relevant customer touchpoints.