Jour 4460 Blog 13: Dole Went Bananas

This past month Dole has initiated a recall on bags of salad because they pose a threat to Salmonella exposure. The bags were distributed in “Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin,” according to an article posted on abc.com.

The recall was initiated after a random sample in New York tested positive for Salmonella.

Dole did issue a recall, but according to Brandon Uttley’s article posted on prdaily.com Dole made nine mistakes.

First, the company didn’t get the word out the public quick enough. Uttley said Dole knew about the possible Salmonella threat a few days before they sent out the message. Their press release about the outbreak is buried on their website. News about the recall didn’t “appear on any of Dole's social media channels (that I could find) until about 1 p.m. EST Monday, two full days after its press release was issued,” according to Uttley.

Second, Dole didn’t make the recall news prominent on their website’s home page. There were no prominent directions on where to go to view information about the news. Nothing was under the website’s “Nutrition Facts” tab. In order to find news about the recall on the Dole site you would have to click “Company Information” then precede to the “Press Releases” tab. This isn’t the most convenient way to distribute the information to the public.

Third, the context of Uttley’s article led me to believe that Dole did not have a presence when it came to social media and that the company didn’t have any social media accounts setup.

Fourth, Dole did not have a company blog. So, with no blog, no social media presence and a buried press release how are your consumers supposed to find out this certain bag of lettuce could possibly have Salmonella?

Fifth, when consumers were venting online Dole didn’t respond. Ignoring the issue won’t help your case.

Sixth, Dole didn’t respond to those who posted on its Facebook page. Instead a status was posted about a sweepstakes the company was sponsoring. It wasn’t until a couple days later that Dole posted information about the recall on their Facebook.

Seventh, Dole’s twitter accounts had no information on either accounts.

Eighth, there is a Google+ account for Dole, but Uttley believes the creator of the site is questionable. In either case there was still no information of the recall posted on the account.

Ninth, Dole’s Pinterest account is pretty extensive. Except, there was no way for the company to communicate the recall.

What’s the biggest thing I took away from Uttley’s dissection of how Dole handled the recall of Seven Lettuces bags? Communication is everything. This is something I already knew through experiencing in any relationship communication is the key to success. The way Dole handled things gives me two different impressions:

• ·      Dole doesn’t think the recall important enough to spread the word
• ·      Dole has something to hide and tried to clean it up quickly

In any case, such a large company should have known better than minimize the information that could prevent a medical mishap in a consumer.