Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

In a recent poll I ran for my own curiosity, it seems most people (85%) consider business ethics to be an important part of the business plan and a marketing tool, with only 14% suggesting those ethics are a profit center. That`s interesting, particularly since many people wish businesses had more integrity, honesty, and good intentions.

At the same time, a recent news story spoke about how airline companies are cutting back on customer service, leaving it to volunteer "travel assistants" to help people who`ve been disrupted by modern travel complications. Those volunteers are paid nothing, not even reimbursement for parking at the airports. Additionally, another story indicates no relationship between on-time statistics and customer satisfaction ratings for airlines.

What do these have in common? Customer service, how important you think it is, and the concept of morality and ethics. Morality is the set of policies you formulate---the rules you`ll use, to act upon situations in life. Ethics are the procedures to follow for specific situations you actually encounter. Philosophy often uses the two terms interchangeably, and creates a lot of confusion.

A profit center is another term for those business-related things that help produce a profit. A cost center is a term for things that increase costs and reduce profits. Sadly, modern corporations too often view their employee "resources" as costs. But worse, most corporations view business ethics as a necessary evil to be assigned to cost centers and operations. Is that true, though?

What exactly is Customer Service? It`s your ethical response to the actual results of an agreement between you and your customer. You`re saying you have a product or service that does something in particular. You`re assuring that claim by also offering a warranty, in many instances. Your customer buys that product in good faith, and gives you money. If your product fails to meet your claim, the customer asks for some kind of response.

How you respond to a customer problem or complaint is entirely up to you, which also is entirely up to your own morality and your own ethics. If you run a business, those moral values and their ethical implementation enter into the business. As such, if you say you have a flashlight and none of them produce light, customers have a right to complain. If you then tell them all to jump in a lake, you are acting upon a moral principle and an ethical decision.

Business ethics, like customer service, are most definitely a profit center. It`s only that most people don`t make the connection between the high-falutin` words of "morality" and "ethics" with commonplace terms like customer support, customer relations, and customer service. But consider this:

Suppose you sell hamburgers and a week after you open for business, 25 people wind up in the hospital with food poisoning. How long do you suppose you`ll continue to remain in business? When you spend money on the operations side, to keep a clean kitchen and buy FDA quality meat is that only a cost? Is it only a problem to handle having nothing at all to do with your ethical choice to keep your customers alive? Are those customers "natural events" that just happen? Of course not!

Many people in the poll propose that claiming to have ethics is good public relations and marketing. The seeming implication is that they`re prepared to say they`re ethical but don`t expect to act in any particular way on that claim. The likely condition is they aren`t sure what "business ethics" actually means. That`s why we should be discussing these "complicated" terms, because business ethics are directly related to what your business will do about customer service.

Suppose you send out a widget and a few days after its been mailed, you discover that the metal you`ve been using is much weaker than you thought when you purchased the raw materials. Do you have an obligation to recall the widgets, or do you wait until someone complains? Will you be proactive or reactive?

Your personal ethics can`t help but be inseparable from the way you do business. If you consider yourself to be an honorable, virtuous, honest person, then you must also intend to run the same kind of business. But how many people believe that words like honor, virtue, and honesty are only discussed in theoretical conversations, or relative to religions?

Honor and virtue derive from a moral code, and that set of policies is a personal decision (and choice) by every thinking human being. The only absolute Good is that which is life enhancing. Otherwise, whatever society follows a life-detracting morality will soon run out of life and their morality becomes moot. But other than life enhancing, with the necessary mandate to define "life" and "enhance," your morality is your option. There isn`t any single morality.

What matters is whether or not you think morality and ethics are just another cost---some problem and bill to deal with. I propose that business ethics not only are the same as customer service policies and procedures, but also are fundamental to the bottom line and profitability of your business. Without a plan for customer service, the likelihood is either that you will have a perfect product never in need of any kind of support, or you`re missing a superb profit opportunity.

Think of ANY company or business in your life that you would make an effort to go back to for additional business. Why? Isn`t the quality of product and support the determining factor? And that quality is a decision by the company owner(s). They don`t "have to" have the highest quality---they can likely produce the product cheaper.

Quality versus cost-savings; honor versus legally within bounds: These are moral decisions, with ethical results. Why are we seeing such an increase in lawsuits these days? I propose it`s because fewer people can connect the complicated terms of morality and ethics to the real-world consequences of customer service. Any thoughts?

CraigL,
I think that to any company, Customer Service is your key to success and growth. as far as ethics and morals.. that is a gray area since they are both along the same boundary lines. The way I can describe morals is: the way I was brought up or my influences whether they are set by parents, religion or self taught. Ethics is more like : I know the difference between right and wrong. :WHAT AM I GOING TO DO" in any given situation. Ethics is just another word for "Whats right, whats wrong" and in any given test am I making the right descision.
I cant businesses if they are moving away from these practices. Lawsuits by far have made many businesses close their doors to "Customer Service". Lets take the Airline example: There are too many people trying to get rich through lawsuits. Just look at 9-11 disaster, they trusted passangers and look where it got us. So I don`t think it`s "The Airlines" Its the people>
Same in business, you want to do right and conduct business in an ethical manner, and here is John Doe lurking in the darks waiting to destroy all you`ve worked for.

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Proverbs 11:

 1 The LORD abhors dishonest scales,
       but accurate weights are his delight.

 2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace,
       but with humility comes wisdom.

 3 The integrity of the upright guides them,
       but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.

--------------------------- + ---------------------------

Proverbs 16:

16 How much better to get wisdom than gold,
       to choose understanding rather than silver!

 17 The highway of the upright avoids evil;
       he who guards his way guards his life.

 

Handy Man and your point was?
How can you apply this to a business?
Please elaborate on all the bible quotes... I like them...

 

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Nuevolution ...your application!

Matthew 6:24
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Handyman,

I get what you are saying, but his topic was not about serving god or money it`s about Morals and Ethincs...Now we know these days that with all the Church scandals going on [and all the child molestation] your preaching doesn`t have weight.

"I Love the Scriptures and believe in god myself, but I wouldn`t have taken it that route. You know why? simply because priests and pastors that abuse the religion to get what they want are not ethical at all. They have morals, They are taught to be moral beings, perhaps higher than you an I.

That doesn`t mean they are ethical. Its almost like speaking of the Taliban and their Jihad mumbo jumbo.
The bible says though shall not Kill and Love thy neighbor; So again, they are taught to be moral, and to be pure and still "Suicide bombers, and Car bombs rock their nations. 

One thing is "having morals", another is being ethical.
Being ethical just means you are aware of whats going on, the desicion you make to resolve the problem is where the word "Ethical" comes into play.

Its almost like The law of cause and effect..
You know whats right and wrong [the moral part], you make a descision [the ethical part] and you prepare yourself for the consequence. If you made a right choice, WooHoo, if you made a bad choice you will live up to the law of "KARMA" 

 

-------------------------

Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

 

Nuevolution .....re: ""KARMA" 

"Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so CHRIST was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for HIM.

Hebrews 9:27-28 

Handyman,
Again!
The topic is Business Ethics = Customer Service,
See Karma can be applied to Business, As for the scriptures, Unless you are selling religious items. Then I would consider using passages from the bible to prove my point.
What type of business do you run? Handyman

-------------------------

Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Nuevolution

re: "What type of business do you run Handyman?"

www.QualityHandyman.net

Before this all turns into an argument, I would have to say that a lot of business owners could care less about customer service these days. I think that most of them expect to get sued so they figure what`s the use of doing right.

I think that more so than the moral or ethic question these days is just plain comes down to greed and playing the odds. By playing the odds I mean that a company performs a service, whether service only or a material product, most people that buy it and have a problem are too busy or too lazy to go back and say anything about it. I think the companies get used to this being able to get away with a certain amount and get lazy themselves and when someone does complain, as I have heard several times, "this is the first time we`ve seen a problem like this" and then may or may not do somethig about it.

I will try to bend over backwards for a customer if possible, once a customer is gone they are gone. You will always get the occasional whiner, but ethically you should still try to make them happy. As I attempt to get into the retail market here soon, it will be a new experience for me but my morals and ethics will stay the same because they run side by side.  I sure wish other places would get back to this theory rather than  greed and POOR customer service.

Also I would like to say that your post was very well written Craig.

Don