Many companies gain bad reputation due to bad “word of mouth” advertising and in our opinion Toyota have surprised us as a company when it comes to business ethics. We have serviced their brand with the finest service and product for the past thirty eight years and kept their clients safe when it came to shatterproofing their car windows.
Having been in business for 40 years and doing business with thousands upon thousands of companies over this period of time, we believe that we have a good understanding of how top brand businesses conduct themselves.
As originators of a very important “life saving and energy saving product -Klingshield smash & grab window films”, which we have supplied to the motor industry for the past 38 years, we were suddenly restricted from applying our product to new Toyota cars by Toyota South Africa without any reason.
Many other window film companies found themselves in the same position and this created a loss of many jobs in our industry.
Trying to understand the thinking behind Toyota’s decision, and after writing numerous letters and leaving dozens of messages, we managed to make an appointment with the after market Parts Managers at the Toyota South Africa Head Office to see if we could find out the reason for such a drastic move.
To cut a long story short, we were given a weak excuse in our opinion and were given an option on how to get back into the game by two very inexperienced Managers when it came to the safety of glass.
Being world authorities in this field, we demonstrated to Toyota that we use the best window film products available on the world market with all the necessary SABS testing, as well as global standards to back our product, but were still given the cold shoulder for some mysterious reason.
We decided to write a letter to the top brass of Toyota, a Mr. van Zyl, to state our case and demonstrate to him why we believe they were making a poor decision by dropping us as a supplier after servicing his brand for 38 years. We also obtained proof for him of all the unhappy dealers who were forced to stop dealing with us.
The problem with the dealerships is that consumers were asking for the Klingshield products which they were given in the past and were happy with and were now being misled into believing that they were getting the same finish, which was not the case by a local glass company.
All this went on deaf ears as we have not even had the decency and courtesy of a reply to our letters which were hand delivered to Toyota South Africa personally, as well as copies thereof sent to them per registered post through the local Post Office.
This whole experience is not a matter of “sour grapes”, but purely a matter of lack of business ethics and principles one would expect from one of the world’s leading companies in automotive manufacturing.
As a matter of fact, we have had a bumper year with the support of Suzuki, Nissan, Land Rover, Jaguar, Volvo, to name but a few.
We were not only suppliers to Toyota, but we also run a fleet of Toyota cars and vans in our Company and this behaviour leaves a bad taste in our mouths, both as a customer and a supplier to Toyota.