Many of us use credit cards to pay for everything. It is an easy, no hassle way to buy things online, from mail-order catalogs, or to use in stores to lessen the amount of cash you have to carry on you at all times. When you use your credit cards how often does the concern of identity theft come into mind? My answer, and probably most other shoppers, would be never. However, it can happen. The TJX Cos. Inc., which includes discount stores TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Bob’s Stores, A.J. Write, HomeGoods, and a few others, experienced a security breach back in December 2006. This has been an ongoing battle for the TJX Corporation, which fortunately came to somewhat of a close this week. This article found on CNNMoney.com reports that the customer lawsuit against TJX Cos. Inc. was settled this week.
Planning: The company had to think quickly and handle the legal issues of this case immediately. The company did begin an investigation right away and some of the PR tactics used included press releases, developing a helpline for customers and updating their website with any news or important information relative to the case. With the recent settlement TJX has made the following agreements and promises to their customer. TJX was also very compliant to the news media. There are many newspaper articles that outline the updates of this case.
Communication: The main communication of TJX was to keep the customers happy and help them through the process, however, TJX waited a month to educate the public on the security breach. When they did finally address the ,they gave a complete overview of the case and issue at hand and how they planned on handling the crisis. TJX had a number of communication channels available to the public including, press releases, news media, and a helpline.
Evaluation: TJX believes to have done an adequate job in their crisis management. Their sales reports show that they have maintained customers and kept sales up from last year. Based on financial data TJX maintained their credibility and people continue to shop at their stores regardless of the security breach last December.
Personally, I believe that TJX could have done a better job at handling this security breach crisis. Waiting a month to inform customers of the breach is ridiculous. A month is too long of a time to allow people to be unaware of the dangers they may be facing in an event of identity theft. Also, waiting till the end of the holiday season to release this information seems a little too convenient. TJX may not, however, had had a choice in the wait to release information. The company may not have been properly prepared for a crisis of this size. If TJX had a contingency plan already in place for a crisis they would have been able to provide information much quicker. The company also should have planned for a longer time to work out the crisis. They reportedly spent over $25 million in investigations and damage control. With a thought out plan they would have been able to save money and come to conclusions quicker. This article shows that both customers and consultants also believe that TJX could have done a better job with communication and keeping the public informed. I do, however, have to commend TJX for making customer satisfaction the number one priority and for continuing to apologize for any trouble or harm this might have caused. This was a major crisis that TJX had to address and I believe that they could have been more prepared for the crisis and could have done a better job communicating to their publics.
2 comments:
Elizabeth, wow, what an interesting and detailed analysis you offered about this case. Your effort in researching the background and providing so many useful links is impressive.
To comment about the case, it seems like TJX communicated with a variety of important audiences ... publics they most likely had identified previously through years of research and planning.
It seems like TJX also planned and delivered the right kinds of messages through a variety of channels and tactics (reassuring publics that their information was safe).
I agree that waiting a month to release this information, though, was about 29 days too long. Perhaps they were waiting for results of their investigation to release information? Could they have been timing the release to occur after some important date (e.g., release of quarterly profit reports)? In either case this does not serve the interests of key publics ... and it hurts the credibility of TJX.
TJX should have released at least a brief, initial statement to warn publics of an incident ... and then followed up with information as it became available.
Good case and great analysis, Liz.
Mark
I had to cut up cards over this one and boy was I P-O'ed. I never recieved anything from TJX! The only person to notify me of this problem was the bank. I think TJX should have gone further, and sent information directly to the affected consumers. They relied on credit card companies and banks, and that is not a good idea in a crisis. Needless to say I have not gone back to any of those stores since I learned about this story.
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