Slashdot Mirror
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?
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."
Especially in advertising. You know how a company will compare their product to their competitors? One example comes to mind: Medicine. Tylenol, for years, compared the effectiveness of extra-strength Tylenol to regular-strength aspirin. Do your comparisons honestly.
Itemized features? The kind that have a column for yours, and a column for theirs? Shock your potential customers by putting in a few of the features they have but you don't, and put a "NO" in your column and a "YES" in theirs. This kind of advertising would make me move the despisometer from zero to "surprising respect".
I've gotten to where I automatically reject as dishonest EVERY ad I see on TV or read anywhere.
Honest advertising that was obviously honest would be such a huge change from the norm that you would definitely stand out in a positive way. (Think "Miracle on 34th Street")
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
"Don't be evil."
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
However, the founder of the Computer Game Developers' Conference, Chris Crawford, wanted to CGDC to be a non-profit organization. But their treasurer wanted a for-profit corporation, he convinced the other members of the board that this was the way to go. Eventually the board members kicked Crawford out, took his stock and sold the conference for $3 million, giving Crawford only a small piece of what the others got.
I had second thoughts when I read this in the book "Chris Crawford on Game Design." All it takes is the other people in your company to decide your ethical ways of doing things are compromising profit. If this happens your screwed.
But by all means don't let something like this stop you from trying, I'm sure there are ways to prevent take overs, I just don't know what they are.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
One of the most important commodity you'll have to maintain is trust. This is not simply not changing your policies repeatedly; it is a combination of factors:
Privacy
Your customer's data is important information. Almost every type of company imaginable now takes andvantage of it, and shares it with others. This includes, but is not limited to: banks, phone, cable, utility and insurance companies, subscription-based services, etc. It's scary just how many companies will "opt you in" to their marketing schemes, some of which they no longer control once it leaves the company.
It is important that you protect your customer's data, both from fraud and industrial espianage... as well as from your own company. It's pretty straightforward: Think about what your company will do with the data, then ask yourself if you would trust your own personal information to your own company. If the answer is no, you might want to make some policy changes.
Customer Service
The United States is an interesting place. Customer service seems to be a far greater deal than it is elsewhere, according to all of my international friends and relatives. Because of this, your customer-facing employees can win you evangelist customers, or sink your company just with words over the phone. Here's a couple of tips:
Communication
Your actual policies aren't all that important. You will discover which ones will work, and which ones won't, based on customer response. But you must stick with those policies. From a customer perspective, what you tell them you will do is your policy. If you break your policy for a customer, you'd better be damn sure that they know that they shouldn't expect it in the future. It's even safer to not break your policies at all... but that is sometimes necessary to appease a disgruntled customer. But also bear in mind that this customer might not be in the right. If this is the case, it's not necessarily y
There are people out there in business who aren't complete sleazeballs, who understand that spamming (either via email or fax) is not an ethical way to grow a business, that 'human resources' means more than just hiring and firing. Find them and hire them. Listen to them, and let their ethical lead create an honest workplace.
While we're at it, resist the lure of VC funds for as long as you can. VCs are (almost-universally) ethically-suspect, not-very-smart people who have too much money and lots of friends at the golf course. As soon as they get a hook into your company, the rot will set in - even if it's only you having to BS them at board meetings.
Just be yourself. I'll figure out for myself an appropriate level of trust and respect. I mean, I don't really understand your question. What people want is usually pretty obvious. It's also impossible to give everyone everything they want and remain in business. Figuring out the balance between those two is what management is there to do. It's not something you can sum up in a neat formula.
Just having that kind of a desire to be ethical is a step in the right direction. One thing to keep in mind is that when you are fixing bugs and implementing features it is plain as day to the customer weather your priority is yourself or your customer. A perfect example of this: We use an accounting package where I work that is licenced on a concurrent users model. We have run tight on our licences and people are regularly not able to log in. However getting another five seats is so expensive we can't get approval to buy more. We discovered that lots of people have the application open for long periods of time with out using it. Ever since we ran tight on licences we have been begging to have a feature in the software that will time out and log off a user if they are inactive for an hour or two. Is the company going to give us that feature? Of course not. There is no incentive because otherwise we will eventually have to break down and buy more licences. This leaves us feeling like we are being taken advantage of. We are loyal customers, we do beta testing for them, but they still pull this little stunt that makes them look money hungry. Just remember that your customers arn't all dumb, and your true priorities come through if you like it or not.
SCO.com uses Linux
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:
sigs, as if you care.