9.4 A note on ethics in customer service
The activity of making a profit has always stood in alliance with the sense of morality and ethics. We will use the terms "moral" and "ethics" interchangeably, although some philosophers make a distinction between them.
Most individuals are faced periodically with situations that they may find to be ethically challenging. What exactly are ethics and why do they matter in our professional and personal lives? Ethics are a set of principles that govern the conduct of an individual or group.
Sometimes ethical decisions are easy to recognise and are perceived as popular choices of behaviour by the people around us. At other times the spectrum of potential choices falls into grey areas in which the "right" or "wrong" course of action is difficult or nearly impossible to identify. The challenge of ethical decision making becomes even harder when it is not just an individual's personal judgement that is involved, but also carrying out the instructions of a supervisor, the request of a customer, the policy of the organisation, or some other situation in which a threat, real or perceived, is involved.
Until recent times the exploration of ethical approaches to business tended to be left to the individual service provider's conscience. Now the exploration of business ethics has begun to take an elevated place in thinking. The voicing of ethical standards was probably attributed to a few notable leaders and outstanding organisations. Now ethics pervades organisations and is constantly a media topic.
Consider this:
So, what are some of the reasons for this increase in outspokenness? You can probably already think of some. Corporate scandals can bring not only heavy fines, but also, among other things, disruptions to routine, low employee morale and a lowering of customer confidence. These can lead to increased turnover and difficulties in recruiting. The international environment in which business operates opens up an array of ethical dilemmas.
You may remember the Tylenol poisoning tragedy? People who had taken Tylenol were dying and no-one knew why. James Burke, the Chief Executive Officer of Johnson and Johnson, faced one of the toughest decisions of his life. Should he pull Tylenol from the market? The financial cost would be enormous. The legal implications could be staggering. His decision was to pull the product. Burke attributes his action to the values underlying his company. Johnson and Johnson's credo begins: "We believe our first responsibly is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and all others who use our products and services."
Burke is a clear example of a leader who knows his values and used them to make decisions. He also kept the long-term view in focus. J & J suffered financially that year, but they came back stronger than ever with more customer trust than they could have bought with millions of dollars in advertising.
There are really no shortcuts when it comes to telling the truth and determining an appropriate course of action. Those around them must see individuals in business as honest, or they will not succeed for long. The bottom line in decision making is that individuals must face the consequences of the decisions they make - good or bad.
A quick mental exercise to go through when faced with an ethically challenging situation is to ask yourself the following questions from Harris (2000), who has drawn up an ethics checklist :
- Is it legal?
- Is it fair?
- How do I feel about it?
- Would the court of public opinion find my behaviour incorrect?
- Am I fearful of what those I trust would say about my actions?
The above questions can be quite revealing when attempting to choose an ethical course of action. This is not to suggest that ethically challenging situations are easily resolved, but by analysing a situation the appropriate decision may be easier to identify. One final consideration regarding ethical behaviour is that it is not always popular to "do the right thing", but maintaining individual integrity and an organisation's reputation will allow all involved to know that they examined all possibilities and chose the most appropriate course of action.
Advice from Tom Johnson, President of Cable News Network is simple but quite useful:
Do what is right. If you are not sure, ask yourself this question: How will my actions, taken in private, look if published on the front page of the newspaper my mother and father read?
This advice works for us - perhaps we should make it a Key service concept ?
Following is an example of an ethical dilemma in control systems and improving customer service. This dilemma is provided as an interesting aside to get you thinking about an ethical question.
An aside: Testing the provider's ethics
They come into retail stores and look like any other shopper, except that they're surly and impossible to please. They do everything they can do to hassle employees. However, they are not real customers, they are management spies. Their objective is to give employees a hard time and report to management on what happens ... Their primary purpose is to check on how employees treat customers. They rarely conduct themselves like typical customers. They're neither courteous nor understanding. They try to display the worst traits of the most demanding customers ...
To do their jobs successfully, phantom snoops must conceal their true identities. Moreover, they are not passive evaluators. They purposely attempt to create problems to see how employees respond.
Robbins and Mukerji, 1994, p. 472
Reflection point:
Is it unethical for the management of an organisation to hire such people to secretly hassle, observe and evaluate employees even if the practice is in the interest of determining whether customers' needs are being met?
The following reading outlines some approaches to testing your own delivery service and standards.
Reading 9.7
DeVrye, C. 1994, extract from chapter 3 "Recover".
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