Page 6 - Short Cases 1 Galaxy Note7 Samsung Resurection

Many reports noted that nothing says "someone screwed

up" like the warm feeling of a smartphone burning in your
pocket. But what caused it:

Was it a faulty battery?

Was sloppy engineering to blame?

Was it management mismanagement?

Or as some commentators saw it “Samsung learned months

ago that the new iPhone 7 wasn’t going to be much of a

game-changer. So it sped up the release of its flagship

smartphone thinking that customers would be wowed by its

superior features and technology.” (5)

The reputation of Samsung was damaged and customer

loyalty was challenged, with many customers expected to

defect to Apple.

The result was Samsung’s biggest brand crisis. One where

instead of issuing a recall, Samsung offered an “exchange
program” through which customers could return the device

and receive a new one, ostensibly with a new, better, non-

explosive battery (2). But, users continued to report

incidents of smoking and burning. Moreover, management
failed to inform the public about what had gone wrong,

indeed it consistently failed to communicate about the

crisis on the brand’s Facebook, Twitter, home page and
other social media sites. It appeared that Samsung’s

social media teams failed to monitor posts about the

product on social media. (2)