subject: Business Ethics And Customer Service [print this page] While the rise of small business entrepreneurs is no doubt great for the American economy, an unfortunate aspect is that many businesses now routinely engage in unethical or morally questionable practices under the guise of "customer service." If you are starting your own company, or already run a small business, this sort of questionable behavior is no doubt going to hurt you in the long run.
Successful companies almost always adopt a stringent code of ethics and enforce it in all areas of their business, including customer service. The best customer service policy is always to adopt high ethical standards, and practice them rigorously.
Customers who believe they are being treated fairly, honestly, and justly will come back. Customers who think they have been cheated, lied to or abused will never come back. Worse, they will tell others to avoid your business because you are a crook!
Ethical Customer Service
The best customer service policy is to be honest with your customers. Never make a promise to any customer that you will not be able to deliver upon. If you can not do something for a customer, there is a good chance you're going to lose some business. Unfortunately, many small business owners think they cannot afford to lose customers, and as a result they lie, telling customers they will do things they know they simply cannot. In the short term, the business may make some additional cash, but in the long-term it is devastating.
When it comes down to it, good ethics in customer service may be painful in the short term, but you will avoid problems down the road. If you want to stay in business for a while, and thrive, your best mantra may not be "the customer is always right." Instead, make sure you don't over promise and under deliver.
Instead of telling your customers whatever they want to hear, be honest. Tell them exactly what you can do for them. If the customer asks for something you cannot do, tell them so, and explain why.
If the customer asks you to do something you know is wrong, tell them that their request is wrong and why it is wrong. In many cases, customers are not aware that some of their requests could be wrong or illegal.
If a customer keeps asking you to do what you know is wrong, think to yourself, is that really a customer you want or need? Fortunately such customers are a tiny minority that a successful business can do without.
Honest Customer Service
Hand-in-hand with ethical customer service is honest customer service. Indeed, the best customer service policy is the simplest and easiest to implement: honesty. Be honest with your customers and you will win their respect, their trust, and more importantly their business.
Ask yourself, would you do business with anybody who lied to you or tried to deceive you? If the answer is no, then you know why honesty is the cornerstone of all effective customer service. The way to win to customers is to win their trust.
This means you should take a look at your customer service policies and eliminate anything that encourages you to lie to or deceive your customers, such as the aforementioned "the customer is always right" policy. Unfortunately many customer service experts and books actually recommend policies that lead to lying and deception.
One final piece of advice: you will never be able to please every customer. Only do what you cannot and do not promise the impossible.
by: Samuel Johnstein
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