How Would You Like a Business to Behave?

professorhojo asks: "These days on the 'net, it seems like a company can go from being regarded as a Good Citizen to Evildoer in a matter of hours (witness Yahoo!'s willingness to time and time again reinterpret their own privacy policy as it suits them and their advertisers). I am at the helm of a new software company and I want us to stand apart from the rest with rock solid ethics, and policies that put the user first, that won't change or waver at the behest of advertising money. What I want to know from you is simple:what are the essential things a company has to promise and stick to? More importantly, what things have companies done, which have made you do a double-take and totally reconsider doing business with them? Why am I asking this? Well, I believe that in the future, the ethics of a company will greatly impact on their bottom line. What's good for our customers is good for us, and customers will be drawn to us BECAUSE of it." It sounds good, but reality has a tendency of getting in the way of good ethics. What suggestions would you make to keep difficult choices from compromising the ethics you would like your company to embody?

Comments

Who cares, just be consistent

[_iris]

For your customers who are individuals (vs companies):

Simple pricing structures with simple paper work and no hidden costs.
Simple, honest price increases. If you just need more cash, say so. Don't blame it on "market events."

How to keep your ethics sound

[RealProgrammer]

As a consultant / system administrator / programmer in business for myself, I have one rule: all I sell is labor. Because of that, I don't sell software and I don't charge a markup on hardware I recommend. It makes everything so much simpler, and I never have to defend my choices as being self-serving. Here are some other suggestions, some of which I've learned the hard way:

• Obey the Golden Rule. The real one, not 'who has the gold makes the rules'.
• The customer is always right.
• Be more honest than you have to be. If your employees and management team know ahead of time that honesty is expected and rewarded and dishonesty will result in dismissal, it will permeate your culture and spill over into your customer and supplier relationships.
• Avoid debt. Owing money can make you somebody's whore.
• Never force someone to accept new features to get bug fixes.
• If you discover a flaw with your product:
  1. Alert your customers, or be open about it, depending on the flaw
  2. Fix it as completely or as quickly as possible, depending on the flaw
  3. Make the fix available for free, and backport it to earlier versions if applicable
• Remember that your business has a higher purpose than making money. Only you know what that purpose is. If your business existed solely to make money, you'd never have asked what you did. If money were your only objective, you would be in a pure financial market, not the software business. What is it that your business should accomplish besides making money? Put another way: what objective can you miss and consider your business a failure, even if you turn a profit? Answer those questions and your ethical decisions will be straightforward.

Re:A software company?

[elendel]

While you may be right from a practical standpoint, what with copyright extensions every time something is about to expire, we have this thing called the United States Constitution:

"Section 8. The Congress shall have power...
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

Notice the phrase "limited times"
You might want to point this out to your congressman.