Old Way of Handling a Product Recall: Let customers find out through local and national news reports, then assume it’s the customer’s responsibility to remember if they purchased said product from you.

New Way of Handling a Product Recall: Work your customer database like nobody’s business, and reach out to individual customers from a “we’re in this together” perspective.

A story on MSNBC today claims that Costco has been culling its member database to determine which customers purchased products related to the latest peanut paste recall scare:

The giant warehouse retailer was dialing Lowder to warn him that two brands of peanut butter sports bars he bought for his kids had been recalled as part of a growing salmonella food poisoning scare.

“They’d scoured their database and found any members who had purchased Clif Bars from them and then called them to let them know that they should
dump those Clif Bars,” said Lowder, a 45-year-old marketing consultant, who bought those snacks and some Zone Perfect Bars as well. ‘Did I mention I love Costco?’”

All it cost was the price of setting up a customer filter and a robo-call system.  I can guarantee you that for every penny spent, it will be returned hundredfold in future customer loyalty dollars.

How thorough is your database? How are you using it not to sell to your customer, but to help them?  It’s a strong way to build an iron-clad marketing strategy on a shoestring budget.