What if they threw a recall and no one came?

Last week Dell agreed to take back 4.1 million laptop batteries. But how many will they actually have to accept? Product recalls have notoriously low response rates. As of last Wednesday, one day after the recall was announced, Dell had received 90,000 responses to its recall notice, according to a story in MIT’s Technology Review. How many will ultimately respond? That depends on Dell.

Response rates are influenced by several factors, including the cost of the item and the amount of publicity the recall receives, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesperson Scott Wolfson. In this IDG News Service story, Roger Kay at Endpoint Technology Research Associates said: "When you offer people a $50 or $100 coupon in a mail-in rebate, you get about 50% compliance. When you offer them a $30 coupon, you get about 15% compliance. And that's when you're trying to give them cash. So if you're asking people to put a battery in an envelope, the likelihood is they probably won't do it."

But batteries aren’t cheap. A replacement for the Latitude D410, one of the recalled units, sells for $119.95 at the Dell Web site.

Some recalls are highly successful, according to Wolfson. He cites a recall a few years ago in which a safety recall for a Williams-Sonoma gas grill received a 99% response rate. But that is the exception. “Those [manufacturers] that are able to directly reach out to the most consumers possible have the highest response rates,” Wolfson says.

Here Dell has an advantage. As a direct sales organization, Dell has the name and contact information for every customer. The substantial publicity, the fact that the cost of a replacement battery exceeds $100 and Dell's ability to contact every customer directly could add up to a relatively high response rate – depending on how aggressively Dell reaches out to its customers.

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