Some friends of mine drive a Toyota, a Yaris to be precise. If I’m honest I’d never really clocked the make of their car before as I’m not really a petrol head and one little silver car looks pretty much like all the rest to me.

But the drama surrounding Toyota’s recall of cars that might, just might, have a sticky accelerator, meant that suddenly their auto ownership became a topic of conversation and, if I’m honest, some pretty poorjokes (what do Toyotas and Tiger Woods have in common? Neither know when to stop).

The recall was a PR disaster for Toyota of course and made headlines around the world but for the car owners it basically translated into a bit of a pain. 

Or did it?

Rather than it turn into an epic tale of inconvenience, the dealership actually picked the car up from their work at 10am and delivered it back at 4pm with the accelerator fixed as well as the full service and MOT that was coincidentally due - and a full valet.And then a week later another envelope arrived containing a letter from the head of Toyota apologising again for the disruption and £20 in Marks & Spencer vouchers.

The only reason I know this story is that I’ve heard my friends tell it about four times. As far as they’re concerned Toyota are marvelous.

The lesson here is that how you deal with problems when they arise is just as important as trying to avoid the problem occurring in the first place. Thanks to Google, I get occasional emails from disgruntled KBB consumers in the middle of a dispute with retailers and they relate, in often thousands of words, every awful detail of the service they’ve had. 

Regardless of the original problem, the details and the anger are usually directed at the lack of contact, information and willingness to put things right. It usually goes something like “March 22: Rang AGAIN, left message, NO ONE replied, AGAIN..." 

Consumers like using uppercase in complaints I have noticed.

If it honest, I never get involved in these disputes if I can help it – we’re not ACAS – but it does underline how badly often very trivial problems are handled. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the customer is always right but these situations end up 1,000 times worse due to a poor customer service strategy, if indeed there is any strategy at all.

So how do you deal with problems to turn them into positive PR experiences? Do you have a strategy to fix things, or do you avoid it and hope it goes away?