The Ethics of Customer Service

I’ve had a couple of occasions in the last week to consider the question of ethics in a customer service situation. In one case we had an example of minimum-wage food service workers who were clearly overpaid; in another (which we will consider in more detail in the regular post sequence) we had to deal with a subcontracting company that clearly is not up to handling the urban hustle and flow of a major metropolis like East Lansing, Michigan (population 42,000). I’ve spent a fair amount of time in customer service myself (including a few years in lower-level food service), and I don’t generally consider myself to be a difficult customer, but this week I’ve been spewing wrath over a number of people who truly earned it – and I find myself wondering about the ethics of the situation. So let’s take a closer look…

We all know that the company has a responsibility to its customers – they’re paying us to do whatever it is we do, and we owe them a reasonable product or service in exchange for their money. Part of this, even in the most insulated company, is giving the customer whatever support they need to have the optimal experience doing business with us, even if that’s just taking their money, making change, and processing them through our facility as quickly as possible. In the case of a fast-food restaurant, this would include making the food correctly, filling the customer’s order correctly, getting them their product as quickly as possible and inconveniencing them as little as possible. I regret to say that my local Burger King franchise failed on all of these points last Sunday, and I was forced to go back to the store and make my displeasure clear. Which didn’t do much for either of us…

Now, I’m not the type to make a scene in public. In the Burger King case, all I did was ask to see the manager on duty, show her the product we’d discovered upon getting home and unwrapping our purchases, and request that they supply us with the complete and correct menu items (including such elements as buns, condiments, and meat that didn’t look as if it the whole package had been slammed repeatedly into a wall). Unfortunately, there really wasn’t any way to do this without providing a dozen or so people with entertainment – and a good reason to cancel their orders and leave. In the case of the subcontractors, we’d purchased a major appliance from a national chain here in town, and their installers made us wait for two extra weeks before they could work us into their busy schedule, and then failed to show up on the day specified or the following day, resulting in our calling the original retailer and requesting that they either get someone out to make good on the contract or refund our money for the delivery/install.

In both cases, I’ve given the employers good reason to fire someone; in the latter case, it’s a reason to stop using that subcontractor altogether, which might result in several people losing their jobs. This raises the question of whether I have any ethical responsibility to incompetent sandwich makers, lackadaisical installers, or dispatchers with no real grasp of either scheduling details or the importance of not annoying your customers. On the one hand, if I were willing to just let all of this slide, none of those people or companies would be in trouble; on the other hand, both cases were grossly incompetent, at least from a customer service standpoint, and probably from a public health and contract law standpoint, respectively, as well.

So do I have any responsibility to the incompetents involved? Do I have any responsibility to the other consumers in this market, who will be inconvenienced (or even ripped-off; it depends on your point of view) if I don’t take action? Do I have a responsibility to my readers (assuming that I have readers) to tell you about these events so that you can be wary of similar screw-ups? Beyond the simple requirements of good manners and civilized behavior, do I have any additional ethical responsibilities as a customer, or does paying my money (and abiding by the law) give me the right to do as I please?

It’s worth thinking about…