The Ethics of Whiners

A few weeks ago I wrote in this space about the flap over Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and some passengers they kicked off one of their ships because one of them (the toddler in their family) was sick and needed to go to the hospital. Much of this flap has blown over because, as it turns out, the cruise line WAS trying harder than originally reported, and the customers WERE refusing to cooperate (despite having an extremely sick baby). But I didn't bring up the question of ethics in that post because I don't believe there was one; the only real issue was one of yellow journalism and telling only one side of a story because it makes for better TV.

This week, Royal Caribbean is back in the news, and this time the issue is a lot further into the gray area, to the point where there is an ethics issue involved. A story picked up by one of the USA Today travel blogs tells about RCCL deciding to ban two former passengers from sailing on any of their ships for life. The story goes that this couple had been on six RCCL cruises over the past three years, during which they complained incessantly about everything. They also posted those complaints on public discussion boards, and continued to do so even after the company offered them discounts and credits toward future trips. In fact, they appear to have posted the amounts of the credits and discounts, too, and may have gloated about them into the bargain. For the cruise line, this was the last straw; not only were these people finding dozens of "problems" all over the ships, they were effectively encouraging everyone out there who had ever done business with the company to try to scam RCCL for money. They told the couple that they should take their business elsewhere.

Now, almost every business has boilerplate text somewhere reserving the right to refuse service to anyone, and just about every business will have to invoke those protections sooner or later. My question is, if you believe that someone is scamming your company and encouraging the whole world to do the same, do you still have any obligation to these people? How about if you have done your best to settle their complaints, and even offered them compensation for their trouble? For that matter, if you do reach a settlement with these customers, do you have the right to require them not to talk about the settlement (or the amount)?

By the same token, no one is disputing that the customers in this story have the right to free speech, and are entitled to post anything they want to about any company that draws their ire. For that matter, no one is going to dispute that the travel and hospitality industries are providing service to customers under some of the most challenging circumstances possible, and even the first-class passengers/guests are going to experience the occasional foul-up. The question is, if you are the customer and the company is actually trying to take care of you, do you have any obligation to cooperate with them, or at least stop complaining about them in public forums? Is causing problems for this company just because you can (and because they might give you more money) any different from damaging any other company for fun and profit, through vandalism, shoplifting, stealing the salt shakers, or whatever? And if you've had even one or two bad experiences with a service provider, why keep going back (6 times in 3 years)? Why not exercise that great American tradition of "voting with you feet" and pick another cruise line?

It's worth thinking about...