Volkswagen Emission Scandal: PR crisis

In September 2015, the German car manufacture, Volkswagen, was in the middle of a scandal. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused Volkswagen of manipulating its engine controls to be able to pass laboratory emissions tests.

Not only was the company violating the Clean Air Act by selling vehicles that didn’t meet environmental requirements, but it was also violating its customers’ trust by making its cars seem more environmentally friendly.

How they handled their crisis through their social media channels?

Unfortunately, the company did not handle the scandal well.

As the scandal started to unfold, the company was not being consistent with their statments. Executives claimed they didn’t know what was going on. As the company set out to recall millions of vehicles, officials promised to reimburse some, but not all, customers for their troubles.

Volkswagen USA stopped posting to Facebook and Twitter on Friday the 18th, the day the scandal broke loose. They didn’t post anything about the scandal on those accounts for a week. They continued to post as if nothing happened. The first thing they released was by former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizing for what had happened. The first tweet that was sent out 4 days after the incident addressing the issue was posted from the @vwpress_en twitter account. It was a link to a video of Winterkorn apologizing.

This was the only thing that was posted. It got a lot of negative backlash because consumers were reporting that the company seemed to be handling the global crisis in a dishonest way.

There were many hashtags including #BuyBackMyTDI, #VWGate, and #VWCares that allowed car owners to express their frustration and disappointment. The problem was that Volkswagen did not respond to thier angry customers.

There were other tweets that were sent out but the majority redirected users to find more information from press releases and videos located on their press release page. Even though Volkswagen has a strong relationship with its stakeholders, the lack of engagement and transparency affected them negatively.

Evaluation

Overall, I think Volkswagen did not respond efficiently and in a timely manner. The fact that the PR team had different stories circulating before they post and addressed the issue on their social media accounts is not the best way to handle a crisis.

They should have responded and acknowledged their angry consumers’s tweets because they don’t want that negativity circling around and ruining their image.

Volkswagen should have responded the second the scandal unleashed. They should have been transparent and admitted that they were manipulating the software and not passing the emission tests.