Expressing sympathy or thanks are not business obligations

Several months ago, I wrote about P.W., a reader from the Midwest who wondered if customer service representatives had an ethical obligation to thank buyers for pointing out errors in shipments. After receiving a package rather than the intended recipient who lived two states away, P.W. had alerted the company. She was sent a shipping label so she could forward on the package on, but no thank you note.

P.W. also wondered if customer service reps were ethically obligated to express sympathy for customers when it was clear buyers were dealing with the loss of a loved one. After her stepmother died last year, P.W. called 12 magazine publishers to cancel her stepmother's subscriptions. Of the 12 reps she told about the death, only three expressed sympathy.

While it would have been thoughtful, kind and ultimately good business to thank P.W. or express sympathy, the customer service reps were under no obligation to do so. Their obligation was to provide a competent and honest response to P.W.'s requests, and each did so.

Now, M.M., a reader from St. Catherines, Ontario, wants to know if courtesy expectations are a two-way street.

After exchanging email with a customer service rep from a major retailer , M.M. got the information he needed to complete his transaction.

"I sent a simple 'thank you' (note) as a follow-up," M.M. writes. Shortly after, he received an email response from the rep indicating how much she appreciated M.M.'s thank you. "She wrote that she responds to hundreds of customers each day and only rarely gets thanked," writes M.M. "It seems to me customers should recognize that courtesy goes both ways. Are customers obligated to be courteous, or is the fact that they're paying for the service thanks enough?"

Kindness and thoughtfulness are virtues and certainly ones I'd encourage in both parties to a business transaction. If a customer service rep is particularly helpful, then expressing thanks for that help is a good thing.

But customers are not ethically obligated to send thank you notes, any more than customer service reps are obligated to express thanks or show compassion to customers. A customer, such as M.M., is obligated to be honest in his dealings with a company. And customer service reps are obligated to work with customers like P.W. and M.M. to respond to their needs.

The right thing for both parties to do in such transactions is to be honest, respectful and responsive. These are the most basic measures of what makes for an ethical business deal.

The handful of customer service reps who expressed sympathy for P.W.'s loss reflects well on them and their company. The same goes for M.M., who took the time to thank a helpful rep. None of them were ethically obligated to show such kindness. Perhaps each of our business dealings would be a bit more positive if we followed their lead. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Wild swings in the price of gas leave reader fuming

R.M., a reader from California, takes issue with "the capricious nature of gasoline pricing."

He explains that the time it takes crude oil to travel to refineries, be processed into multiple products (including gasoline), and finally sold to the gas stations that serve consumers can be "up to several weeks." Yet, whenever crude oil prices increase, the price at the pump is immediately boosted, he notes, even though that gasoline was processed from crude oil sold to the gas station at a lower price.

What's more, R.M. points out, if the price of crude oil dips, consumers typically don't see any immediate drop in gas prices.

"There's usually a much longer lag to reduce the at-the-pump price when crude prices drop," her writes. "As a consumer of gasoline for the past 40 years, this pattern is fairly accurate."

R.M. knows that prices at the pump are set to make a profit. It's the gasoline suppliers (refineries, oil companies, distributors) that dictate the going rate at the pump, sometimes even forcing station owners to sell regular gas at a slight loss to raise the volume of customers, "with the hope of making up for that loss with the profit from higher-priced premium gas and any other sales revenue available at the station."

Although R.M. acknowledges that oil companies and gas stations have the right to charge whatever they can get for their goods, he wonders whether it's right to raise and lower gas prices at the pump price so inconsistently.

As a fellow consumer of gasoline, I share R.M.'s frustration. In some cases, the wild differences in prices from state to state make some sense given varying tax rates on gas. But the frequent price swings don't make sense to the average consumer. Neither does the variance in price from station to station.

Does that make the price swings unethical? Not necessarily.

Unless suppliers are engaging in illegal price fixing, setting their prices based on what's legal and what the market will bear seems fair, Suppliers should not gouge gas station owners, however, and station owners should not gouge consumers.

Fortunately for consumers, websites and apps such as www.gasbuddy.com are now available that report the lowest gas prices in a given area. (A quick check just revealed that there's a 14 cent per gallon difference among stations within two miles of my home.)

The right thing for gasoline station owners to do is charge a fair price for their goods so they can run a profitable business. The right thing for consumers to do is shop around for the best gas prices they can find. If enough consumers gravitate to stations offering the best prices, the market may send a strong signal to neighboring stations that they should reconsider their pricing. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of  The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.