Research

I'll spare you the details as you can see more in our latest analysis on Toyota's recall challenges from earlier this year. But if I asked you to simply vote whether the U.S. recalls significantly hurt Toyota's customer loyalty, what would you say? I'll suggest you think twice about your answer. 

Overall, Toyota seems to have weathered the storm due to a long-standing and strong product reputation. This, coupled with the way they managed individual service visits when customers came in to have the acceleration problem fixed, appears to have saved some of their customer retention concerns. All of this despite the media spotlight thrown onto them in early 2010.



There is one telling fact worth noting: a higher level of first-time Toyota buyers shied away from the brand between Q3 2009 and Q1 2010 (a period of heavy international attention on this company). This tells you that newcomers to Toyota decided to delay their purchase of this brand more so than before. However, the consumer research on this one tells us their existing customer base bounced back nicely.

While part of their "owner bridge" may have had a few chunks of cement knocked out of it from the wide-spread recalls, Toyota appears to have built one tough bridge overall. Good for now.

Posted by Lonnie Miller, Vice President, Marketing & Industry Analysis, Polk (07.13.2010)