Samsung is moving quickly to put the Note 7 disaster behind it, and as part of that process, the South Korean company has taken out full-page ads in major US publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.
The letter, signed by Samsung Electronics North America CEO Gregory Lee, outlines the company’s regret for the situation that unfolded, and discusses what lessons have been learned and measures will be put in place to prevent a similar thing happening in future.
In the advertisement, Samsung acknowledges the issues surrounding the Note 7, as well as issues which affected some top-load washing machines in the ‘States as well:
“An important tenet of our mission is to offer best-in-class safety and quality. Recently, we fell short on this promise. For this we are truly sorry,” the ad reads. “We will re-examine every aspect of the device, including all hardware, software, manufacturing and the overall battery structure. We will move as quickly as possible, but will take the time needed to get the right answers.”
The full advertisement is shown here:
Samsung is still investigating the Note 7 issues, and will undoubtedly communicate further with its customers — and the market more generally — once those issues are properly identified and addressed. It’s good to see Samsung taking these steps, but the proof will be in the pudding: seeing the issues put in the past and a successful phone launch in a few months at MWC 2017.
Analysis
It’s good to see Samsung continuing its public expression of responsibility and apology; it shows the brand is taking ownership of the issue, and trying to demonstrate quite conclusively that it will learn from what’s happened.
We haven’t seen this kind of action in Australia — yet — and we may not, given the relatively smaller number of devices sold and thus affected here. However, a similar action would go some way to repairing trust in the brand locally.
Having said that, Samsung’s actions in Australia have been rather quick and responsive, leaving us at Ausdroid (at least) with little concern about the company’s handling of the issues. Of course, we’d rather they hadn’t occurred at all (and Samsung probably does too), but they way they’ve responded to those issues and acted swiftly to ensure customers aren’t put out any more than necessary… they’ve handled it well.
