What Are Your Customer Service Ethics?

Ethics can be a controversial subject. What seems perfectly fine to one person might be extremely wrong to another. Do you think much about customer service ethics?

People sometimes believe it is okay if it is a small thing. It might be the little white lie or the dirt swept under the carpet. In other cases, it might be connected to the concept of a baker’s dozen or getting a take home container after having a full meal at the buffet.

What do you think, are people and businesses ethically challenged?

Observed Ethical Challenges

Make a cake and you might hide the imperfections with extra icing, seems sweet enough.

What about the chicken nuggets left over from the lunchtime rush? Did the cook notice or simply not care? Perhaps it is about profit, no nuggets wasted.

The same might be true for the aged lettuce tossed into your salad or cleverly hidden under your sandwich bun. A few pieces here and there, no one will notice.

Ethics exist in customer service. Sometimes they are cleverly disguised in the sale. Other times there is hope that it simply goes unnoticed. Besides, if discovered there is an apology to make things right.

Is this the food you want to eat? Is it the product you thought you were buying, or what you expect to find inside the brown box on your doorstep? No customer wants this surprise.

You Are What You Build

In life, you are the product of your habits repeated over and over again. The same is true for your business reputation. You are the product of what you deliver over and over again.

You might sweeten the cake sometimes and get away with it since icing seems like an extra. Few would probably find fault or feel short-changed.

Cold nuggets and brown lettuce are never a good idea. Some might complain, but many others will just go somewhere else the next time.

Customer Service Ethics

What you try to hide or pretend to not notice might get you through the day. After all, if no one says anything did it really happen?

The successful shop, the one that cares and is ethical, is not sweeping anything under the carpet.

They are not building it for today. They are building it for today and tomorrow.

Their customers come back and refer others.

– DEG

Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSP^TM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a four-time author and some of his work includes, Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce and Pivot and Accelerate, The Next Move Is Yours! Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.

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