Maker of Recalled Cribs Missing Opportunity to Use Social Media Tools It Already Has

*Updated below.

The news of the largest crib recall in U.S. history, which broke last night and is still evolving this morning, shines a bright spotlight on the critical importance of having a crisis plan and integrating social media into crisis response - especially for a major manufacturer of child and baby products.

The company, Stork Craft, is recalling more than 2.1 million drop-side cribs in the U.S. and Canada and, thus far, its response has been troubling silence. Bloomberg, NBC, CBS and other news outlets reported Stork Craft has not returned any calls for comment, its Web site is overwhelmed with traffic and is down as of this blog post and the CBC reports many parents have been unable to get through the customer care phone lines. The company's response is even more bothersome because it just went through a similar situation earlier this year when it recalled more than 500,000 cribs. As worried parents continue to hit road blocks in their search for information, Stork Craft is ignoring two effective avenues of communication that are working that they could be using right now: its blog and Twitter handle, @StorkCraft.

Returning media phone calls is a whole other story; However, if its Web site is overwhelmed and its phone lines are jammed, Stork Craft can immediately begin to communicate with anxious consumers by posting a statement to its blog and tweeting important information and responding to concerns. Even if the two channels were not originally intended for crisis communication, Stork Craft's blog and Twitter handle are its only sure means of communication while the company works to get its site and phone lines back on track. If Stork Craft had a crisis plan to begin with (and it should have after its last round of recalls in January at the absolute latest) they could have integrated social media into their response. It's not rocket science, and by not using the digital tools already at their disposal, Stork Craft is missing an opportunity to protect its reputation and provide consumers with important information.

*Update: It looks like now, after an initial phase of silence, Stork Craft is responding to consumers on their blog and via Twitter while they work through their phone/Web issues. While not interacting with many customers on Twitter, they have engaged several people to give them information on ordering repair kits and are pushing people to their blog with a message from their e-marketing and social media manager that says:

We’re currently working through the initial surge of inquiries and requests at the moment. It is very busy here and we are doing our best to meet the demand...We are experiencing heavy traffic on our website. If you find that you are having difficulties getting through, please send this information to: parts@storkcraft.com

 It's promising to see Stork Craft beginning to use the tools they have to reach consumers, even though it's late. Let's hope their use of social media translates into a more coordinated media/consumer response overall.