Friday, Dec. 08, 2006
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Nation
Can Taco Bell Win Back Its Customers?
Still grappling with an E. coli outbreak, the fast-food chain is
doing too little to show that it is on top of the crisis,
public-relations experts say
By Tracy Samantha Schmidt
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Taco Bell's attempt at damage control needs damage control. The
fast-food chain has responded poorly to this week's E. coli outbreak,
experts say, and its bad public relations could hamper Taco Bell's
efforts to reassure its customers.
Since Nov. 20 at least 60 cases of E. coli infections have been
reported across six states, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), most of them linked to Taco Bell
restaurants. Forty-eight of those people have been hospitalized, seven
with potentially fatal kidney failure, and more cases are likely to be
reported. The New York Times reported on Friday that there are
at least 169 confirmed E. coli cases, most of them centered on Long
Island and in New Jersey. The cause of the outbreak remains unknown,
although green onions from Taco Bell restaurants are the suspected
source. Both the CDC and Food and Drug Administration are
investigating.
This week, the chain temporarily closed at least 60 stores in New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware for cleaning and
restocking of all food. Most of the stores were reopened within a day.
Taco Bell also launched its own investigation into the E. coli's
source, and its private laboratory found E. coli present in some
samples of green onions. On Wednesday, Taco Bell removed green onions
from all 5,800 of its restaurants.
Yet consultants who specialize in advising companies faced with
such crises say Taco Bell's actions are not enough if the Mexican-food
chain is to avoid a serious blow to its business.
Taco Bell's president, Greg Creed, has posted three short
statements on the restaurant's web site since the outbreak was linked
to the chain on Monday. Even those written statements were late in
coming, says Timothy Coombs, a crisis management expert at Eastern
Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. "The story broke Monday
morning and Taco Bell did not have anything up until later that
evening," Coombs says. "People were looking for information
online and there was nothing there."
Taco Bell may have also confused the public by closing and then
reopening restaurants, even though the source of the contamination is
still unknown. "Some would say that was a sign of being
proactive: closing the store in order to protect the consumer,"
says Steven Fink, president of Lexicon Communications Corp, the
nation's oldest crisis management firm. "But then Taco Bell
reopened the stores and nothing had changed. Why did they close the
stores and then reopen them? That sends a mixed signal that the
company doesn't have a handle on what's going on."
Those lessons were learned by Wendy's, the fast-food chain, in 2005
after a customer in San Jose, Calif., claimed to have found a human
finger in her chili. The incident temporarily drove away Wendy's
customers and sales plummeted by 50%, according to Fink, who blames
much of the drop on Wendy's ineffectual communication with the public.
But the Wendy's finger episode turned out to have been a hoax. Taco
Bell faces a more challenging public-relations task, since the E. coli
outbreak could raise health concerns about the chain that will far
outlast the specific threat.
Fink suggests that Taco Bell replace all of its suppliers until the
source of contamination is found. That's what he did while overseeing
2003 E. coli outbreak at Pat & Oscar's, a restaurant chain based
in southern California. "Taco Bell needs to send a clear message
to the customers that they are going the extra mile to protect them
— that has not come across in anything I have seen yet," says
Fink.
Fink, who also oversaw crisis management for the Jack in the
Box restaurant chain when its E. coli outbreak in 1993 sickened 600
and killed four children, predicts that Taco Bell's troubles are just
beginning. "I can tell you right now there's going to be class
action lawsuits, a lot of litigation involved, and health department
investigations," Fink says. "It's going to go on for a
period of years, and Taco Bell needs to be prepared for it. I don't
know whether they are."
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